Gorgeous and Gorgeous ~ with words this time. :)

The weather was GORGEOUS on Thursday. Ridiculously gorgeous.

So after I picked Mookie up from preschool, we went to Subway and grabbed some sandwiches and went to the park for a picnic and some fun play time.

Sprout LOVES to swing. Holy cow, that girl loves to swing. And, sadly, she wants her big sister to swing, too, but Mookie won't. Mookie is, for some VERY strange reason, scared to swing. But every time I put Sprout on the swings, she points to the other one and says "Nini wing! Peas? Nini wing?"...which is her way of asking her sister, begging her sister to swing. And her sister continues to break her heart and mine.

Anyway, once she gets to swinging, Sprout giggles and laughs and smiles and throws her head back and her hands out and just. has. fun. She's just as happy swinging by herself as she is sitting on my lap swinging (which Mookie will do, she just WON'T swing by herself. Even in the baby swing. I wish I knew why.)

She loves to play at the park, but she always wants to swing. One thing I miss about where we lived in California was that we had a park on our street, about 7 houses up, so we could go every day if we wanted to! And, believe me, Mookie wanted to!! Sprout was too small to enjoy that park much, but Mookie sure did! It didn't have swings, but whenever we went to a park with swings, she was happy to swing...so I'm not quite sure what happened. :-/  She also loved to go down the slide. Big or small - loved it! Now? It takes a small miracle to get her to go down the smallest slide.  It's the darnedest thing. I know I need to get them out to the park more often, but it's just not the same. And it's sure-as-heck not as easy as it was! And the weather? A lot less cooperative. :)

It's cold and snowing now, but at least we had Thursday!

Christmas 2011 ~ Recap and Highlights

(I also posted this at We Shall Sew, in case you go there, too)

Well, it's Tuesday now, the 27th, and we finally ate Christmas dinner tonight. :)  There is no real reason for the delay, except that I kept sleeping through my put-the-turkey-in-the-oven-NOW window.  How was I supposed to prepare a turkey and get it in the oven smack dab in the middle of my nap time?

And I sure needed my nap on Christmas day.

Dave and I were up until after 3am Christmas morning, and we were tuckered out! It was totally worth it, though.

TOTALLY!!

As referenced in my last post, we made a puppet theater for the girls. Other than the curtains and the re-build upstairs, it was done in plenty of time. But the curtains took me a while since I took my sweet time. And the re-build took a while since Dave had to hand screw everything in so as not to wake the girls up with the drill.

See, we went from having only a little tree, and no presents, in the loft area when the girls went to bed Saturday night, to having a large puppet theater and a mass of Christmas gifts in the loft area when they woke up.

That kind of transformation takes time, people. It takes time.

Every morning, Mookie has this tradition, if you will, of stumbling into our bedroom around 7:30 for a bit of a snuggle and to play games or read while we all wake up. So we weren't really worried that she would see anything out of the ordinary before we were ready for her to see it.  And Sprout has this tradition, if you will, of sleeping till about 8:30, so we were all set in that regard.  Once Sprout woke up, we all went downstairs for some breakfast...and to build the hype a bit. Since Mookie hadn't seen any presents under the tree, she didn't really expect anything out of the ordinary, but we kept talking about this BIG surprise, and how excited we were, and how excited she would be, and how much fun we were going to have, etc.

So about 9:30, I went upstairs first to set up the video camera and to hide in the puppet theater to take pictures, and then Dave brought the girls up.

Here's the before (you can see the puppet theater on the left):

Mookie was so startled by the transformation! You can see the surprise, and fear?, in her face.

She was actually so scared that she got down on the floor and started to crawl! Poor girl!

But when she figured out that it was a puppet theater and that it was all good, she jumped up and RAN for the "puppet feetar" as she calls it. :)

I love that photo! I love that face!! :)

"Look, Mama! I can do my very own puppet shows!"

Then she came around back, grabbed the few puppets we had (many more showed up soon!), and commensed to wowwing us with her mad puppetry skillz.

There were quite a few puppet shows that day...and every day since. :)

Not one to be left out, Sprout was trying to get in on the puppet show action. (LOVE the hair!)

Here's the whole family before we opened any of the presents. The loft was a WRECK by the time we were all done. Still is...

Dave gave me a pair of Christmas socks (among other things...like an Accuquilt Go! Cutter) (Score!!) and Sprout desperately wanted to wear them. How can you say no to that cute face?

Here she is with them on. These are certainly easier for her to wear than my regular slippers!

This is such a goofy shot of my goofy girl. I love it.

We got Sprout a little kitchen tools set, and both girls really loved it. Occupied them for quite a while, actually.

I found these little fairy wings at Target on clearance, and thought Sprout might like them. Well. Little did I know! She immediately said "Ningabow! Ningabow!!" (For Tinkerbell), and held out her arms. I said "Do you want to put these on? And she said "Yup" And I said "Okay." And she said "K."  I just adore this age!!

Her Tinkerbell wings stay on pretty much every moment she knows they're there. We sneak them off every now and then, but when she sees them, she wants them on again.



I love that she's wearing fairy wings and trying to build something with her Mega Blocks. Every fairy is an engineer, my love. :)

Here's Dave with his fairy baby.

Poor girl. She was just poopin' out, there! We'd only been going for about an hour and a half at this point...

She found her second wind, though, and got to playing again.

So, that's it! We took our sweet time, and very leisurely opened all of our presents. It took us about 3 hours, really, but there weren't THAT many presents. We just took. our. time. We read stories. We had puppet shows. We snacked on candy. We played with new toys. We stayed in our jammies all day.

And then we used our new sandwich press to make fancy triangle sandwiches, and then had a nice, well-deserved nap.

Which explains why I slept right through my put-the-turkey-in-the-oven-NOW window, and we didn't eat our Christmas Turkey until 2 days later. It was good, though. :)

Potty Training {Days Beyond}

So, I gave up potty training Mookie. I just couldn't take the feelings of failure and abuse and torture and bribery anymore.

I still asked if she wanted to go, and would sit her on the potty, but I didn't set a timer, and I didn't stress about it. We even pulled out a few hidden diapers for nap and bed times.

I can't remember now, but somewhere in that week, she started to really pee on the potty. A couple of times she told me she needed a diaper, so we high-tailed it to the potty and she peed in it. (Hallelujah!) She didn't have any accidents during the awake times, and grew really proud of herself.  Part of it could be that I figured out her "currency". Her bribe. The thing that makes her little heart skip a beat.

Play-doh.

Sadly, I hate the stuff. Friends should not buy friends' kids play-doh! Ugh.  Mookie? Loves the stuff. Wants to take it to bed with her at night. Wakes up asking to "play" Play-doh. Wants to take it to the restaurant when we go out to eat.

Somewhere along the potty-training line, she learned that she would get a new pot of Play-doh every time she peed in the potty, or woke up dry, or some such milestone. Knowing that, she was considerably more motivated to pee or hold it, or do the "potty dance." :)

In the big picture, the 47 pots of Play-doh aren't very expensive, and she spends SO MUCH TIME playing. And she really loves it.  She's forever dreaming up something new to make with it, or showing off her latest creation, or "making dinner" with it...the possibilities are endless with that kid.

We don't have many tools for the Play-doh, though. That would be too much, I think. I have a one-color limit (can not STAND when the colors get mixed. Bah!!), and most of the tools allow you (or encourage you) to mix colors. Not happenin', folks.  We do have a few things, though, and I've augmented her tools with a few cookie cutters, some plastic knives, and a small rolling pin. She's happy as a clam, and doesn't ask for more than one color, thankfully.

Anyway, back to the potty training. So, we had about a week of normal, around-the-house pottying, and then we went away on vacation. She was a STAR!! She peed on a big potty at the Dallas airport, at the Newark airport, in Central Park in New York City, Penn Station in NYC, at the Crayola Factory in New Jersey...

...riddle me this, though, folks...the Crayola Factory didn't have toddler-sized potties. Why? They must have a million toddlers and small children coming through in a year, why not have toddler-sized potties?? Good thing for me, she was comfortable using the big ones if I held her.

Now, a few weeks after I started this journey, she's peeing on the potty all the time during the day (I try to take her about every 60-90 minutes just to be safe, and she lets me know if she needs to go in between). She wears a pull-up at nap and bed time or if we're out of the house, and "big girl pants" during the time we're at home.  She still isn't pooping in the potty, but thankfully she has only pooped in the pull-ups. I'm kinda ooked out by the idea of poop in her big girl pants. :o)  I know it will happen, but I'm glad it hasn't happened yet!

She's still got a pile of "prizes" that she could have gotten (and still can), but she seems perfectly content with the Play-doh she already has, and isn't interested in those books/puzzles/games/candy/bubbles/movies on the counter.  However...there is a big Play-doh kit that will sit there until we are fully potty trained. And she knows it.  She's motivated, and I think that was the key to success.

So, that's our story right now. Peeing on the potty isn't a big deal. Pooping is our next hurdle. :)

Potty Training {Day 2}

(I am keeping track of Mookie's potty training here because I know if I don't, I'll be clueless when it comes time to train Sprout. Which I will do MUCH earlier.)

Mookie spent the day yesterday asleep or whining or just generally not being herself. So, we are trying this again! It's critical to do this now because Dave has a few days off and he can take care of Sprout.

9:00 - came upstairs to The Training Area. Prayed. Went over the rules and expectations. Practiced.

9:40 - really got started. Started the (10 min) timer and started playing with Play-Doh. (Mookie is downright addicted to the stuff.). 10 minutes dry, 5 on the potty with no success. Drinking juice.

9:55 - second 10 minute bell rang with no misses. No success in the (5 min) potty. Setting the timer for 15 minutes and playing more Play-Doh.

10:25 - 15 minutes, no misses. 5 on the potty, no success. I even have the water trickling in the bathtub.

10:45 - same as before. 15/5. This time she pulled her underwear down and sat on the potty by herself. I gave her a small chocolate bar. We need to drink more water!

10:50 - role-reversal time... Mookie wanted to be the teacher. I have now had more "success" than she has. :-)

11:05 - set timer for 20 minutes, Mookie is doing well "trapped" in the playroom with me. We have read books, played with fabric, and done some workbook pages. 5 more minutes with no success. I'm also painting her fingers and toes while she's seated.

11:30 - (the timing is not exact, but it's close). I'm getting bored. I expected her to pee at least once in 3 hours! The timer is at 20, and I told her that when she pees in the potty, I'll give her a new, big, pot of Play-Doh. We'll see if that helps.

12:00 - this time, just for fun, we practiced wiping. We didn't need it. (sigh). Setting the timer for another 20. Maybe I should shorten the time. I don't know. (Still no new Play-Doh.)

12:31 - melt down. She wants to go downstairs. I'm not letting her. Today is about tinkling on the potty. Another 5+ on the potty with no luck. I'm praising her for practicing sitting on the potty.

1:00 - same ol' same old. I've even upped the bribes. It's lunch, then nap time.

2:00 - going down for her nap dry since before 9:00 this morning. Didn't eat much lunch.

3:45 - Mookie woke up crying and then got sick multiple times. Poor kid.

We're done. I'm done. I'm not sure if we'll try again tomorrow, but I'm thinking not. Since she's not exhibiting any signs of WHY she is sick, I can't really tell until she pukes. and I don't want to push her any more.

Potty Training {Day 1}

= Fail.

I was ALL kinds of prepared. I read the books, I prayed, I separated the bribes toys into small, medium, large. I prayed some more. I hid the few size 4 diapers that are left in the house. I prayed yet some more. I prepped the bathroom and the playroom. Dave was lined up to be Parent #1 to Sprout all day so I could devote my time to Mookie all day.

What I didn't expect was that cry at 2:45 in the morning. That "Mommy! I getted sick in my bed!" cry. I scooped her lump of a self up, and we crawled into the guest bed, where we slept off and on until about 10:00 in the morning.

Poor Mookie-licious is sick. Just not herself. She doesn't have a fever, doesn't exhibit regular signs of sickness, but she's just not herself. She only threw up one more time during the day, but it doesn't make any sense. Poor kid.

We'll try again tomorrow.

(I am keeping track of Mookie's potty training here because I know if I don't, I'll be clueless when it comes time to train Sprout. Which I will do MUCH earlier.)

Frozen Easter #1

I suspect this will be a recurring theme as long as we live in this fickle-weathered state. It's the same at Halloween, though. Snows. Every year. On Halloween and on Easter. No matter when Easter is. Snows.

At least it's predictable!

Here's a slideshow of the pictures we took on Saturday before we left the house for the Easter Egg Hunt, and immediately afterwards.  I'm so glad I didn't get the girls fancy Easter dresses! I wouldn't have dressed them in them because it was too cold, and then they wouldn't have ever worn them! The outfits I got them, though, are pretty cute and totally practical.




I hope you had a wonderful Easter!

And Now For Some Comic Relief

I actually captured some cuteness the last few days. I've been SO ridiculously remiss.

The first is a video of Mookie dancing at the end of Shrek 4 (whatever it was called). SO cute.



And the second is, well, you'll see.



Sprout has been saying it for a week, or so, but at first, she didn't associate it with an action. Now I know she does.

And, in other news, Sprout is almost ready to sign "cat." She's trying really hard, and she lifts her hands up when the cat comes in the room, but she can't quite get the rest of the action down.  I didn't catch that on video, but I'll try.

I hope you enjoyed those. :o) Have a great day!

For The Chronicles

(poor, neglected blog)

Here's a video for anyone still checking in!


I took it one night while I was getting ready to make dinner. Sprout didn't want to sit in her high chair, so I thought I'd try an old tried-and-true method of entertaining the baby...pots and pans!

These aren't really a pot or a pan, but the end result was the same. Loud baby = happy baby.

And here's a picture I took of Mookie this morning. I doctored it up with Flickr's Picnik CinemaScope tool, and I pretty much love it. :o)

It Was NOTHING Like Today...

You know those scenes in movies where it looks like someone is standing on a ladder dumping huge scraps of paper to make it look like it's "snowing"? That's what it looks like outside my window today. Big, puffy, heavy, wet, white snowflakes are flitting about.

And it's cold. Not 70 below zero like it was last week, though. :o)

10 short days ago, it was balmy and rather tropical here, so I took the girls to the park for a picnic. It was Sprout's first, and she did FAHbulously. She sat on the blanket and played and watched people and ate her Gerber puffs like a champ. Mookie wanted to play rather than eat (which is nothing new.), so I made her sit and eat half of her lunch before she could go play. :o) I love the park. I miss having a park at the end of the street where we could go every. single. day if we wanted  to.

I took quite a few pictures of the picnic, but I'm only going to show you 2, but I think you'll see that we had fun.

Wook at doze smoochy cheeks.

Mookie was bouncing.

It's important to remember that the sun does shine around here, and there are days when we can venture to the park. Now that it's February, it'll probably be a few weeks till we can do it again, but at least I have pictures to remind me that those days will come again.

I hope you have a great week!

So Good It's Worth Sharing Again

This morning Mookie wanted to watch old YouTube videos of herself, and we came across this
CLASSIC!

I know you've seen it before, but it's SO worth seeing it again. And again. Brings tears to my eyes all over again. :o)

Enjoy!



Cracks me up. Every. Time.

Precious Moments

When we were house hunting, I really thought I wanted a finished basement. But now I know why God had a different plan.

I would have missed precious moments like these...

It's snowing outside, but that doesn't stop Mookie from riding her bicycle. In her jammies. With her fancy skirt on. And her helmet on backwards. :-)

As much as I miss living in LA, if we still lived there, I would have missed this. :-)

Bright Eyes

A friend pointed me to this feature on Flickr's Picnik photo editing site. It's called CinemaScope and I LOVE it!
I'm sure there are ways I can brighten Mookie's eyes a bit more, but I am pretty excited about this effect! :o)
Don't expect to see me upload tons of photos just to CinemaScope them, but I just thought this was a pretty cool way to waste some time. (like I need more ways to waste time, right?

The Note That Became A Tome

(tap, tap, tap)
I can't see out there, so I'm not too sure how many people still come to visit. I'm thinking Megan, Kelly, Tink, NZ-Jen when she's not busy lassoing the stork, Claudia hoping for pictures of grandbabies, and a few others when time allows, right?

Well, I have to apologize first. It's been a whole heckuva long time since I put any time and energy into this space. I've been trying to blog from my iPhone for a few weeks, and have been entirely unsuccessful. I know blogger has changed some settings for mobile blogging, and so I'm thinking that might be the cause, and I HOPE I can get that sorted because the time I spend in front of an actual computer is minimal at best. Mobile blogging really makes it easier for me to keep in touch, and when that's down, so is my communication. Sorry!

I can't upload any pictures right now, but when I can, man alive, you better be ready! It's been a busy month for us! We've been on dog sleds, on snow machines, to a 100 year old birthday party, had a million hugs from wonderful family and friends, had a wonderful and blessed Christmas season. We've baked, we've sewed (sewn?) (stitched?) (been sewing?), settled in a bit more, we've painted, we've celebrated...on and on the list goes.

Oh, wait. Here, try this. I copied these from Facebook.

There you go. Here's a picture of a real life musher (a.k.a. dog-sledder person)  Dave's aunt and uncle live in Alaska, and have a team of sled dogs, and his uncle ran the Iditarod. They are in Michigan for the winter (a balmy one, if you ask them!), and brought the dogs along. We spent the day with them earlier this week, and had the chance to go for a ride. Of COURSE I jumped at the offer. :o)  Mookie and I sat while Chris drove. What a fantabulous experience!

Here is a slew of other pictures from that day...

(Mookie was howling because the dogs were HOW-HOW-HOWLING with excitement and anticipation. They sure love their job!)

 Just being cute. It's easy for her. :o)

The dogs really do love to go for runs through the woods. They usually go for a 5-6 mile run a day, but they are not tired anymore, so a longer trail is being carved for them. :o)

Another action shot of us mushin' along.

Here's Dave coming in after his ride. He was pretty quick, and we didn't get very many good pictures. Sorry! You can see the dogs' area, though. And stop right there if you think these dogs must get cold at night. They're used to living in Alaska! This is toasty for them! :o)

Mookie and I were just foolin' around, waiting for Dave to return from his ride.

My beautiful, sweet, pensive daughter.

My beautiful, sweet, mischievous daughter. 

Doesn't that picture just warm your heart? She would much rather chew on the spoon itself than possibly ingest anything that might have once been ON said spoon. Silly girl.

I just look at this and laugh. We tried and tried and tried to get a picture where all of us were looking at the camera at the same time. Well, we got it! Nevermind the fact that the four of us were apparently reacting to four different scenes in a movie! Why can't we all be smiling?!?!? Into the camera?!?!?  At the same time?!?! (sigh)

And, finally, the reason we are gathered here today. The beginning of it all. 100 years ago, a sweet little baby girl was born, and we celebrated her birthday in style!

Here she is with her two youngest grandchildren (no great-grandchildren! Can you believe it? 100 years and no greats!)

The beginning and the end. Bookends on the story of life.

And that, my friends, is the end of this post. Good night. Hopefully I'll be back again, soon. Until then, have a happy New Year!

Cheerderella

We discovered a bag of hand-me-down costumes this morning and Mookie saw the Cinderella costume and decided that she HAD to wear it.

Over her jammies.

Then we discovered the pom poms. And we had to "cewebwate." :-) We celebrated how awesome Mookie is. :-)

Whoopsie!

Tonight when Mookie was getting into the chair before dinner, she
slipped. Just a little, but when I asked what happened, she said, "I
dropped myself!"

She is...

Helpful.

Helping me wipe down walls. So cheerfully, too. :-)

(yes, rats do live in her hair at night)

Nibble Nibble

Old Navy, I heart you. You make what I want for cheaper than I can make it myself.

And it looks adorable on my child.

Thank you.

Introducing, Mookie Cupcake...

(Some people thought she was an ice cream cone.) 

(They were wrong!)

Do you know any ice cream cones with attitude? :o)

Sprout went as a Mummy. I didn't get any pictures of her, though. (Mummy because she was all wrapped up in my white Moby.)  :o) 

Must Read: I'm Sharing A Secret...and couldn't come up with a better title.

I have a an important secret to share with you here today.

Are you sitting down?

I've been meaning to do it for a while, now, but couldn't muster up the courage.

I have twins. Twin daughters. They are a marvel of science, and just to be clear, they are fraternal twins.

Here are their Halloween pictures:

Fraternal "twins" who just happen to have been concieved and born two years apart.

They are a marvel of science, my copy-cat babies.

(P.S. You know I'm kidding, right? I had you going, though, didn't I?)

Hello, June

The apron came from Aunt Carolyn, the necklace was my mother's, and the combination? All Mookie.

She cracks me up.

Now That's Professional!

Flock of Seagulls paid good money for hair like this.

Moms worldwide would pay good money for the nap that created this hair. :-)

And man alive, we needed a good nap!