Good Morning Sunshine

These are one of the things I love about my job; I am able to drive around and see scenes like this every day.




Can you see the baby goselings and their parents? I took a close up with my real camera but also took this one for quick blogging.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Wiggly Tooth

We've got another wiggly tooth at our house. To try to speed things along (this has been wiggly for a long time) I bought some corn on the cob. It's one of Addie's favorite foods and since she hasn't really wanted to eat many apples, I thought this might work.


It's been a busy weekend at our house. Adam has been away for work, so its just the girls and me. On Friday night we drove down to my Grandparent's house to see my Grandpa inducted into the local high school Wall of Honor. It was back home on Saturday to work on pricing stuff for a garage sale. Today we ran errands (including picking up a new to us 2 wheel bike for Lily) and did more pricing. We fit in a bike ride to the park, but somehow didn't get the lawn mowed.

Hmmm... Maybe tomorrow.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Sick Day

We're having a sick day today. I'll leave out the gory details, but Adam found Lily wandering into the bathroom last night around 1:30 am. Much laundry was started and Lily ended up in our bed for the rest of the night. Sufice it to say, no one got much sleep. I don't understand how such a tiny girl can flip flop, squirm and take up as much room as Lily!

Now we are snuggled up watching cartoons. I'm hoping I can put her down for a nap this afternoon so I can do a teleconference for work. In the meantime there is snuggling, laundry, vacuuming, dishes, snuggling and no end of work to do around here.

Milk allergy update: all is good so far. We've tried "stringy" cheese which she loves. It's definitely opening up a new taste pallet for her. Lil informed me the other day that Oma makes better Mac & Cheese than I do. The kid has been introduced to Kraft!

Lily wants to type something:
Addie I love you


-- Post From My iPhone

Milkin' It

Blog, meet Rosalina. Rosalina, meet the blog.

Lily had a blood test last week to test her milk allergy. I am estatic to announce that she came back with ZERO reaction to milk. We now get to slowly test her out on tiny bits of milk products to see how she does. It's tricky with a 4 year old because she tends to be a bit of a drama queen. Does her tummy really hurt or is she saying that because she's hungry and Momma to carry her to the table? We'll take it one day at a time and a tiny bit of milk at a time.

To celebrate, the Easter Bunny brought us a new pet. Rosalina the Hermit Crab. So far Momma is enjoying the crab the most. I am completely fascinated with the little guy - I mean gal. Lily got the honor of naming the crab. As she said, "I want to be named Rosalina, but since I can't then she can be Rosalina."

Music and Lyrics

One of Addie's favorite songs right now is one she learned at mass, "He Will Raise You Up.".

I was singing it tonight (incorrectly since I'm really bad at lyrics) when Addie started correcting me. It's amazing that a five year old can kick my vocal cords in both melody and lyrics.


In other news, here's a photo of the girls showing off souvenirs from Florida. The girls got matching dresses and Adam got the t-shirt.

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She's Stylin'

Hey there pretty girl, what happened to all your hair?

We finally got fed up with having all the snarls in Addie's hair. While we were at my parents house, I took her to get her hair cut. The stylist cut off 8 inches! Enough to donate to Locks of Love. This is Addie's second donation to Locks of Love and she's only 5!

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The Orange Fairy

Some of you might be shocked to hear that we have an Orange Fairy at our house. I would argue that it must be an imp or an elf of some sort, because this was a naughty fairy.

Today has been a non-stop series of snacks. My fault perhaps, since I didn't put either girl down for a nap. As I was starting dinner, Addie came and asked for yet another snack. I said no because I just had to throw out part of an orange that neither child would eat.

Her response?

"But Momma, I did eat my entire orange. The Orange Fairy came to our house and dropped a part of an orange and flew away. Recognizing that Momma would be mad and blame me for not eating my orange."

I've got to respect the creativity and the crafting of the story, at the same time that I am annoyed that she is lying to me.

Direct Proportions

My blogging is in direct proportion to the number of photos I take with my phone and the amount of free time I have. Obviously I don't have much of either lately.


Last night we had a great playdate with our friends. I don't have wonderful things to say about our location, but I did get 3 free meals for next time. Considering I only bought 2 kids meals, I'd say I came out ahead.

The kids all play together great. It was really noisy and busy when we got there, but it didn't take too long for the big kids to leave. As a side note, if you're old enough to wear makeup, you're too old to be in Playland! The big hit of the night was Dana's new phone with the cool apps.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Dear Santa

Two Christmas' down, one to go.

We've had a very exciting week at the Big Blue House. We had to rapidly change plans at the last minute last week because of an expected blizzard. Although Duluth got the large amounts of snow, we got the sleet and slush. Still, it would have been hazardous travelling weather, so I'm glad we postponed Christmas with my family until Sunday. We had a quiet Christmas Eve at home, broken only by the constant, "Can we open presents now?"

On Christmas morning we were having breakfast when there was a knock at the front door. Adam asked Addie to go answer the door. I heard a, "It's Grandpa!" "NO, it's SANTA!!!!" Yes, Santa came to our front door (we don't have a chimney anymore). Santa gave the girls some toothbrushes, a hair brush and some "lipstick." He also told the girls a sweet story about how there are bells at the North Pole that ring all year long to let the elves know if the girls are naughty or nice. If they are nice, the bells ring "ting-a-ling," but if they're naughty then the bell will ring "ding dong."

The girls were thrilled that Santa actually came to our house while we were awake. Between that and discovering that Addie has a loose front tooth, it was pretty exciting at our house.

Lily with Great Grandpa Wally

On Sunday (after a late start due to some moron lighting their car on fire and Adam being paged out to investigate it) we headed down to my parents for an action packed gift opening. We missed eating with the family, but we had an excellent meal nonetheless. The girls had a blast seeing all the family and playing with their cousins. Now, I'm ready for a long winter's nap.

16 Days Off

I never though I would say it, but I will be very happy when Addie's school vacation starts. She has 2 weeks off of school, which equates to 16 consecutive days. As much as Addie loves school, it is a long day for her and by most Fridays she is completely worn out. She really needs a few days to sleep in and recover. This week the wall came on Tuesday night.

She had a rough day at school, starting with me not believing that yesterday was a no uniform day. Then she got in trouble for "accidently" drawing on someone else's paper. At Oma's she got in trouble because while wrestling with Eric, he came out of the battle with teeth marks on his arm.

Obviously it was a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.


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1st Christmas Concert

I had great intentions of uploading a video of Addie's 1st Christmas Concert. However, after waiting all day for the video to upload to Blogger, I decided that it is just too long. Instead, you'll have to enjoy a picture that didn't make it to our Christmas card this year.

Don't worry if you haven't gotten a card from us yet, they haven't been sent. I have wonderful intentions.... maybe we'll get them out before New Year's.

Being in Kindergarten is hard work!

After weeks of swine flu-like symptoms at my house (everyone but me was affected), Adam was down sick for a week with pneumonia and now he's off hunting. This morning I was feeling like I had everything all together for once. The kids and I are packed and ready to go to my parents for the weekend. I got Lily off to daycare at a reasonable time. Addie was dropped off at school on time. I was feeling pretty good.

Then it hit me as I was driving away from the school. I don't know if Addie's had a snack in her backpack all week. We're supposed to pack a midmorning snack for the kids every day. I completely forgot about it. I know they have extras at school so she doesn't really mind if I forget, but I feel like a bad parent. I guess those teachers will be getting an extra special present for Christmas from us!

Lily has been having unusually red and irritated eyes lately. She rubs them so much that they get red and puffy and occasionally bleed at the corners. I've been completely baffled and didn't know what to do about this. I've been thinking maybe it's a nervous habit or something she does to keep herself awake at night. I've been putting my eye cream on her as a last ditch resort. Last night I mentioned it to Oma to see what she thought. One of the other parents just looked at me like it was the most obvious thing in the world and said, "it's seasonal allergies." Of course it is. I gave her some Claritin last night and she slept hard through the night. It didn't make it any easier for her to fall asleep, but at least she slept well.

Does that make me 0 for 2 in the parenting department?

Gypsy Princess

Lily loves playing dress up; as if you couldn't guess that from her refusal to change out of her "Michael jammies" most days.

It's not uncommon on the weekends for her to go from jammies to dress up clothes and then down for a nap. She'll get dressed sometime after nap!


Combining outfits into the frilliest of combinations is really her forte. After all, a girl can never wear too much tulle.

- Posted from my iPhone

The Donation

There is a dinner auction for Addie's school tonight. I had a babysitter lined up. I had a date. Now its falling apart on me.

It is $40 a ticket and I bought 2, thinking my mother in law would be able to come with. Now that the girls have been sick this week, she isn't comfortable coming to our house.

I couldn't find a friend who was free for the evening. I convinced Adam to come home early from setting up deer stands so he could go with me. We were going to meet up with friends later for drinks at the Black Water.

Now our babysitter is down with the flu.
Ever feel like the world is conspiring against you?





-- Posted from my iPhone

The Evil Stepmother

Adam had to be to work early today, so it was my job to get the girls up and running. I woke up Addie and snuggled with her for a bit. She kept saying "buenas noches Mommy" and burying her head under the blankets. I got her into the bathroom and her teeth brushed and got her brushing her own hair.

I started helping her brush her hair; she turned around to look at me and said, "You know Momma, sometimes you're more like an Evil Stepmother."

I had to tell her that an Evil Stepmother wouldn't care if her hair was brushed or that she was dressed in clean clothes for school.

Halloween Roundup

Bambi and Flower with Their Haul

Because of the gunk going through our house, Halloween was pretty understated this year. Bambi (Lily) went out Trick or Treating with Daddy while Flower (Addie) stayed home with me to give out candy. Addie wasn't quite as upset as I thought she would be, which tells you how miserable she was feeling. Poor kid was running a temp for 2.5 days.

Tail View

Lily waited until Sunday to come down with what we assume is H1N1. At least she got to enjoy Halloween now that she's big enough to really Trick or Treat.

Ugh, I sure hope we're over this crud now.

A Letter to Our Friends

Dear AJ,

I love, love the playdate we set up. Thank you for being nice to me. I hope we meet again.

Love,
Addie

Dear AJ & Sydney,

Thanks for the playdate. I loved playing princess.

Love,
Lily

This is a version of the letter we sent to AJ this morning. Addie insisted upon putting a picture inside an envelope and writing our letter on the outside. She was insistent that the "mail girl" (we have a male mail carrier) pick up the letter and bring it to AJ's house.

I kept Addie home sick today. We're just taking it easy - or at least she and Lily are. There's been coloring, painting, letter writing, and reading. On my part, I've been trying to use up the bountiful tomato harvest we've had. I made some salsa this morning and am working on spaghetti sauce with roasted zucchini and eggplant. Now, if I could just get motivated to do more than sweep the floors, we'd be in business!

A Pretty Good Artist

Addie was coloring these giant size coloring pages this afternoon when out of the blue she said, "whoever made these was a pretty good draw-er. I can't choose just one, I want to color all of them."


-- Posted from my iPhone

Catching Up

I realized that I hadn't downloaded photos from my camera in quite some time. Since I've been taking pictures with my iphone and posting infrequently to the blog from my iphone, I really didn't pay much attention to the camera. So... I give you photos from our trip to the St Paul Children's Museum in August.

The Peanuts characters are right outside a candy shop next door to the museum. While I ran into a restaurant and ordered sandwiches to go, Adam got this picture of the girls.

Clifford the Big Red Dog came out into the atrium and danced with all the kids. The kids taught him the Hokey Pokey and the Chicken Dance. The room with Clifford's town was a big hit with the girls. In fact, you can just barely see Lily sliding down Clifford's tail.

Wagging their little beaver tails! The Children's Museum does a great job of having fun animal exhibits. The girls really liked this beaver dam. The other highlight was the ant hill, where you dress up as an ant and crawl through tunnels. It was really an amazing exhibit! What a way to spark children's curiosity about the world.

She Comes By It Honestly

This kid loves chocolate like, well, like I like chocolate. She comes by it honestly. And really, can you blame her? The kicker is that because she's dairy free, she has excellent taste in chocolate. She can't eat any milk chocolate, only the very dark, very high quality chocolate. There's no messing around with this kid, give her the good stuff!

I did a little dairy test this last weekend. I tried making pancakes with real milk (one of my accounts gave me a gallon of milk). I miss pancakes made with milk. Lily got a stomach ache and diarrhea from it. She also seemed to get a minor rash "down there." Now that she's out of diapers we don't have the same obvious signals we had before. My question is, how do we know if it's still an allergy or if it's an intolerance? Maybe it doesn't matter. I'm not sure that it would change the way we live right now. If it hurts the kid to eat dairy, then I'm not going to serve it. If I get her tested again for the allergy, am I doing it just for myself?