Ode to Daisy

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Last night Tom and I got a sitter and we went to see Marley and Me. Both Tom and I had read the book and really loved it, so we knew the movie would be funny and sad. After watching the movie, Tom and I thought about how big a part of our lives Daisy has been. We got her right before I found out I was pregnant with Ella. Ella was planned but I wasn't expecting to get pregnant so quickly after trying. Although I didn't throw up really with either of my pregnacies, I just felt yucky most of the first few months. Then exhausted the rest of the pregnancy. I would come home from work and just not want to move. Daisy would come snuggle me and really helped me through that first pregnancy, that was before she was 50 lbs. She definitely ate a few pairs of shoes, chewed the bottom of most of our apartment blinds, and a few hats. Our dining room chairs all have bite marks on the legs. There were many things she destroyed of Tom's that I would hurry and replace before he knew she had gotten to them. What a typical puppy she was. She adjusted well to Ella and then again to Audrey. I am constantly amazed at how tolerant she is with the girls and what she will just sit and take. Ella loved her from the minute she was aware of her. Audrey has really taken to her the last few months too. They will both randomly go over and hug and snuggle her. (I think Daisy would prefer to sleep, but she just lays there and takes it.) Daisy loves other dogs to everyone detriment. She sees one and makes a bee line to go make friends. Sometimes I am not expecting it and either drop her leash or practically drop a kid in the process. I have never seen a dog that gets so excited to go to the vet or the groomer, just to have other people and dogs to visit. Daisy was Ella's first word, before Dada or Mama. DeeZee. She is in Audrey's top 5 and Audrey still won't say mom. She is a huge part of our family and don't ever want to think about a time when we won't have her with us. Thanks for all the unselfish love Daisy.

Hummm...Interesting

61 words

Typingtest

I found this on a friends site and thought it was interesting. I am sure I am not the fastest typist out there, but I am sure I could have done a lot worse too. It took me a couple trys to stay in the 60 range with no typing errors. I am so glad I took that typing class in high school!! Who knew it would be such a useful class??

Merry Christmas Everyone

Make a Smilebox slideshow

We had such a WONDERFUL Christmas. On Wednesday afternoon Tom and I took the girls over to Birkdale (it's a shopping center around the corner from our house). They have these mechanical bears that sing and play music for the Holidays. They normally play a couple songs, then take about 15 min breaks and then start again; at least that is how it worked last year. I guess because it was Christmas Eve they were going non-stop. The girls LOVED it. I was expecting Ella to like it and she did, although she wanted to explore all the other decorations that were up too. Audrey on the other hand was mesmerized. She has never been so friendly. Tom and I couldn't stop laughing at her. She was dancing in circles and would fall from getting so dizzy then get back up and start again. Everyone there was watching her as much as the bears. She was hugging and giggling with anyone that would pay attention to her. Then we went home to make Hawaiian Haystacks for dinner. We put the girls to bed then I had to start wrapping. I hadn't wrapped a single present to that point. Tom got to work putting together gifts. Tom's parents got the girls rocking chairs and when we opened them up only one had the screws that you need. That taught us a very valuable lesson for future Christmas's. We will open the boxes and check for parts BEFORE 9pm Christmas Eve. Thank goodness they were from the Grandparents. Between wrapping, assembly and making pies (Tom), we didn't make it to bed until 2am. When the girls got up at 7:30, we made them come watch Cartoons in our bed until 8:30. The girls wanted to just play with the toys instead of continuing to unwrap. We finally got through with opening all the gifts about 10:30. We went to the Higbee's for dinner with some other families in our ward. Madison Pruitt and Ava Higbee were there to play with Ella and Carter Bole and Audrey followed each other around all night. We really had a great night hanging out with everyone. We miss being so far away from family during the Holidays, but if you have to be away, at least we have wonderful friends to spend time with. I hope your Christmas was as great as ours.

Things I have learned this week.....

As a mom, it is amazing how much you learn random things like:

• Half a roll of toilet paper will make it all the way from the guest bathroom to the far side of the couch in the living room still attached to the holder and still have some toilet paper to spare.
• A 1 year old looks like they are pooping when they are just about to throw up.
• You should expect your 2 year old to throw up within a couple of days of your 1 year old throwing up. It is the cycle of life, or sickness.
• I DO NOT regret spending extra money to get the washing machine that has a Steam Sanitize cycle.
• When you have a sick 2 year old there is no such thing as too much Dora. At 2 in the morning and you are whimpering in bed with mom, running a fever of 102, don't want juice, popsicles, or food, you can still want to watch Dora.
• Antibiotics will kill the bugs that could be pnemonia. (Or pre-pnemonia) Yippie for antibiotics.
• Snot can come out of your ears when you don't have the ability to blow your nose. (Last year I learned it could come out of your tear ducts.)
• When you feel helpless and overwhelmed with sick kids who just don't want to do anything, and then they sit up and say "Love you Mama, Love you." (Ella) then lay back down, you can handle just about anything.
• Audrey can run faster then Ella only if she has just stole either 1) a toy Ella was playing with or 2) juice or milk Ella was drinking. Any other time Ella can beat her.
• Audrey is pretty sly with stealing either 1) a toy Ella was playing with or 2) juice or milk Ella was drinking.
• Charlotte can go from 70 degrees one day and not even hit 39 degrees the next. I miss global warming.
• It is not a good idea to take the dog groomer by yourself with just two toddlers. All three follow other peoples dogs way to easily.
• Daisy can feel double her weight when trying to follow another family home...
• Ella can feed Daisy all by herself. She can only get about 4 kernels of food in the cup at a time, but she will patiently fill up the entire bowl by herself.
• Daisy and Audrey can eat the food faster then Ella can fill up the bowl.
• The door to the laundry room where Daisy eats should be closed all the time. (I am not sure how to get her water though.)
• When Daisy licks the water out of the bottom of the shower it means she is out of water.
• Ella CAN open her Christmas presents by herself without help. (She didn't get very far.)
• You can show Ella her present on Friday and by Tuesday she still knows EXACTLY which present is hers and which is Audrey's. You would think she could read.
• When you are really lazy and don't want to hide the Christmas gift or lug them upstairs out of view, as long as the gifts are in boxes, you can leave them out in the hallway when your kids are 1 and 2. They think the gift is the BOX!! Wahooo......
• Audrey said her first sentence "Huh-eye DA-ZEEEEEEE".
• The only thing I really want or need for Christmas is a happy healthy family. Anything more then that is icing. (I admit, I am pretty excited to see the girls faces when they get their gifts though.)
• My kids think that Santa is a weird guy in a red costume, while they think Christmas is Jesus' birthday and totally know who He is and can find Him in any picture. And YES, I LOVE THAT. It is a few more years before it is commerical and toys for them. Not that Ella doesn't know that there is a gift for her, but she doesn't know to ASK for it.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but as you can see I have been busy learning. Hopefully I don't have to learn quite so much this week. I am sad to not be surrounded by all our extended family and friends for Christmas, but I am also excited to have a quiet little Christmas with our family. I love all of you and hope you all have a very very Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas To ME!!

Do I need to say more?? Santa came a little early with the help of our other washing machine spinning its last cycle. So far I LOVE it. The delivery time was scheduled between 4-6pm today and Sears came through on time. We are on load 3 right now and we are trying the sanitary steam wash cycle this time. Wahoo! I have loved Sears ever since Extreme Makeover Home Edition so I am glad I can contribute to the next makeover!! I know that most women aren't big on appliances for gifts, but for anyone that knows me....... I LOVE THEM! I am just way to practical. I would rather a good appliance that saves me time over jewelery. Don't get me wrong, someday I would love nice jewlery, but my kids tend to ruin most things I have anyway, so I can wait for a few more years. Thanks honey.

Tacky Sweater Party Part 2

I forgot to mention that I created a Flickr account so that everyone at the party could log in and see their pictures here. (Or any of my friends that just want a good laugh) If you want to have a copy of a picture, just right click, choose copy, then go to wherever you want to save it and right click and choose paste.

Tom and I are still laughing about all the gifts and Matt's pants! I almost wish I had traded Santa Conquers the Martins for the the picture of Kurt, Curtis and Colby shirtless after their marathon......humm maybe next year.

Sweaters and Trains

2nd Annual Tacky Sweater Party!!

On Friday we attended the annual tacky sweater party, or in most cases stinky sweater party. Whew some of those smell, I think Tom's smelled the worst. We got our sweaters at a Goodwill in Lenior, NC, which is a tiny little town. Although Tom had been sick most of the week, he felt okay on Friday so we went ahead to the party. It was SOOOOOO worth it. Who can pass up good food and better friends? The white elephant exchange was the best. I think it even topped last year. Our gift we gave was a Goodwill Gift Certificate...yes they sell them..... and Russian chocolate from a little Russian grocery store. We came home with leather print fabric padded handcuffs and the movie "Santa Claus conquers the Martians". Tom said it best "We came home with a date night!" Thanks for everyone who put the party together!

Unfortunately, Tom felt worse on Saturday. And now I am starting to get sick too!! Ughhh.. Despite not feeling good, I bundled up the girls and took them to our neighborhood Santa visit. It is one of the highlights of the year. Not only does Santa come, but so do the Little Blue Choo Choo. Ella LOVED the train. Sorry for the glare off the train. I am not sure how to avoid that yet. Audrey was more interested in the candy cane Santa gave her. Ella wasn't a big fan of Santa. She liked him from far away, but didn't want to get close. When she saw the candy canes on the other side of him, she finally dared to at least pass him. I asked her "What do you say?" (I meant Please) She turned to him and said "Trick or Treat". She did give him a high 5 though.

In addition to not feeling well, our washing machine just went out on Saturday. Yikes. I worked 4 out of 5 days this week, so Saturday was suppose to be laundry day. Looks like we will have a new washing machine this week.

O Christmas Tree O Christmas Tree

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Between FB and the blog, lots of my friends have asked about why I had no tree yet. We had a Christmas Tree dilemma. Tom and I bought our first tree on Black Friday the first year we were married. I loved that tree. Christmas is by far Tom's favorite time of the year and favorite holiday. After my mom's death and a few bad Christmases between that time and meeting Tom, it wasn't really the highest on my favoriate holiday list. (Don't get me wrong, I love the charity and focus on Christ at this time of year, it was just the actual day itself I always dreaded.) Tom's enthusiasm is contagious and it quickly crept back in my heart. So we have added to our Christmas decor every year, and now have more Christmas decorations that everyday decorations, so it is a sad day when Christmas has to come down. This year our addition was going to be a new tree. The problem is should we get a 7 1/2 ft tree or a 9 ft tree. We have 9 ft ceilings. Four trips of "looking" and we finally decided to go ahead with the 9 ft tree. I went to pick it up Friday night because I was hosting a leg of our Relief Society Progressive Dinner for the women in our church on Saturday and Lowes was out of OUR tree!!!! (We live 15 mins from Lowes Corporate headquarters, so I sent Tom to the other 2 within a 15 min drive and they were all out as well.) Finally Tom found one at Home Depot and so just a few hours before people were to arrive, I am frantically trying to set it up and "fluff" out all the branches. I am glad we ended up with the 9 ft tree though. Ella walks in the room each day and says "Hi pretty tree". Once it was up and decorated, she started to hug it. I am glad I got a picture of that. After the madness of this week, we had a yummy dinner and then settled in to introduce the girls to "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer". I mean who doesn't love Yukon Cornelius and the Island of the Misfit Toys? Ella watched the whole thing while loading up on popcorn and my little pony gummies. I love introducing our girls to things Tom and I remember and did as kids. It's the most wonderful time of the year.........

A 2 year supply of Infant Motrin....

would cost $240.....just in case you are wondering. No I haven't stocked my 2 year supply yet. We go through about a bottle a month, sometimes more when having serious teething issues. Why would I know this? Because I just had to stock up again. This is the life of having TWO toddlers.

This week at least one of our two kids have been up until midnight and Audrey has had two nights that she has woken up again after 1am and cried for about another hour or more. Tom and I are zombies right now. Tom has been working 12-16 hour days and so that makes it even harder. My schedule hasn't been much better....but at least a little better.

On top of no sleep, we are refinancing our house this week and so the appraiser came yesterday, so what little time we had when the kids WERE asleep, we were touching up the house, cleaning carpets, and doing "honey-do" projects to get our house looking like it hasn't been lived in by the two toddlers.

Oh yeah and Christmas decorations.....everything is up but the tree. It is strange to have all your decorations up and no tree. It makes the house look unfinished and still un-Christmasy without the tree. As I have been pulling out decorations, especially my nativities, I point out Mary, Joseph and Jesus to Ella and Audrey. Audrey (probably unintentionally) said the best "Jesus" I have heard out of either of them. That girl won't be far behind Ella in her speaking ability. Which is saying a lot because Ella speaks more then any other kid her age I have met. It is nice to have them learn about Christ and not just Santa. I am not against Santa and I want them to enjoy Christmas presents, but I also want them to really understand what Christmas is about. Today I took Audrey to the doctor (to see if her lack of sleep could be an ear infection because she sleeps in your arms, but screams the minute you set her down....nope, just teething in case you were wondering). When we walked in there was a Christmas tree in the waiting area. Ella saw it and started bouncing and yelled "Mama a Jesus Tree". All the moms couldn't help but laugh and say how cute she is.

What am I doing on my blog with two kids asleep??? I am heading to BED!!