Ice Cream

There is something about an ice cream cone that brings great joy to a child.  Lily is no exception.  She was thrilled when I announced for our FHE treat we were going to the big "M" to get a cone.  Allie enjoyed hers too, but since she got a mini cone she ate it all gone before I could snap a picture.  Taking pictures of these everyday little things we do, is really helping me appreciate how much I enjoy seeing my kids happy.  I guess you could say that is my ice cream cone!

Squishy Face

 

All of the girls were blessed with Russ's ample cheeks.  They are perfectly round and many people say to me, "don't you just want to squeeze those?"  I laugh good naturally, and then move on.  But what those people don't know is that since I'm the mom, I get to squeeze those chubby cheeks! 

Lily, Allie and I play a game called squishy face.  Basically it consists of us squishing each others cheeks and giggling at the funny faces we end up making.  Charlotte was quickly introdoced to the game after she was born.  Her cheeks are particularly fun to squish because the are absolutely hollow and just collapse on themselves. So maybe only me and the girls find this to be an amusing game, but it is little things like this that make our days interesting.

Gardening and the Bad Mommy Award

Yup, I won that award again today.  We were working on getting the gardens setup all day.  Charlotte was inside sleeping, while Russ, Allie, and I were outside. {Don't worry I had the baby monitor with me!} For some reason it didn't even cross my mind that we would need sunscreen in 70 - 80 degree weather.  That is until I looked over at Russ and he looked more like a tomato than a man.  I quickly looked over at Allie, the fairest one of all, and sure enough she was sporting some red.  I quickly grabbed her a hat and plunked it down on her.  The good news is that she had been playing in the shade a lot of the time so her burn is mild.  So mild in fact that she hasn't complained about it at all.  Yet, that still doesn't make me feel better about forgetting.

Our humidity is on its way back and look what it does to Allie's hair!  She has the cutest fro goin' on.  See her burn on her neck, she has a little bit on her head where her hair parts too.

 

Tomato boy {aka Russell} adjusting the edging to go around our plum tree.

Allie was so cute and kept wanting to help.  She dug in with her hands while stating "Me help too!"

Little hands at work breaking up our clay soil.

Right before taking her picture Allie stated, "Me happy!"  She is a very happy child, if only she could learn to open her eyes for pictures, lol!

Golfballs and Nasty Medicine

 Lily has been having some allergies problems the past week.  IT started with a headache.  Then her histamine bump swelled up.   Lastly I noticed that her eyes were sunken and blood shot.  None of these really occured at the same time so I kept second guessing myself whether I should take her in to the doctors.  She of course has been acting fine so that too led me to believe that I was being an overreactive mother.

Yesterday I got a call from the school nurse requesting that I come pick Lily up because she had a fever of 102.  YIKES!  While picking Lily up the nurse showed me that she also had swollen glands.  I decided that I would take her in to the doctors after hearing that.  Of course there were no appointments available until today.  So I mad Lily rest all day yesterday on the couch which she didn't protest much.  However her glands got worse.  Both swelled up to the size of a golfball.  Poor thing looked a bit like Frankenstein with the bolts coming out of his neck.  We kept a pretty good eye on her all night after seeing those things swell.

Russ took a personal  leave today so that I wouldn't have to haul Charlotte into the doctors office with all the nasty germs going around.  Upon visiting the doctors we found out that Lily has a VERY bad sinus infection that could be related to allergies.  The swollen lymph nodes are from some sort of infection that she is fighting, but not from the sinus infection.  Because she is allergic to amoxicilian they gave her a super aggressive antibiotic that covered both infections.  The medicine is horrible though.  Lily pulls faces when she takes it, and I pull faces from the smell of it as I measure it out.  Hopefully, it works better than it smells and tastes!

Today has been harder to keep Lily resting.  She feels okay except that she can't turn her neck.  She has wanted to play and run around but I keep forcing her to rest.  She has to stay home tomorrow so I'm not sure who is going to be tortured more by this, me or her. 

This is a shot of her swollen lymph node.  It is a bit blurry.  The second photo has red ring circling the node so it stands out a bit more.  Pretty big, huh?!

Ickie Sickies

Unsure of what hit me last night but an hour or so before getting into bed a started shivering and couldn't stop.  Russ ended up piling four blankets on me and I still wasn't warm.  My body also ached all over.  I ran through a couple of things it could be in my head while I laid awake shivering but ruled all of them out. 

Today has been nightmarish.  Allie is in a mood where she cries over everything.  Since I was stuck on the couch shivering to death I couldn't do much for her.  She didn't like that mommy just looked at her when she was on the floor crying about something.  Every time Charlotte woke up a cringed with the thought of feeding her. Having her against me just made the aches and chills worse. She was wonderful though and slept most the day, so at least I didn't have to take care of her.

Today was also shopping day, which means we are out of essentials like bread, cheese, and fruit.  My wonderful hubby volunteered to go shopping for me after he got home for work.  This is a huge sacrifice for him considering he only gets to see the girls for two hours upon getting home.  He only got to see them for 30 minutes this evening and that was when they were eating.  Oh did I mention he made dinner too?!  Okay he went to McDonald's on his way home but that is because I made him.  There was no way he was going to have time to make dinner and go shopping.

After all that the good news is that the chills and aches have left.  I still have a massive headache that I'm a bit week from.  Hopefully tomorrow all will be well, I'm not sure I can suffer through another day of listening to Allie watch Mickey Mouse.

Tender Moments

 

Allie wanted to spend some time with Charlotte today.  She laid down right next to her so she could talk with her.  I love watching moments like these unfold between the girls.  They both were enjoying each others company.  Yes Charlotte was cooing and ahhing through most of this interaction.  Allie was just giddy with excitement that Charlotte looked at her.

BINGO night at the Book Fair

The Book Fair has come to visit Lily's school again.  I don't remember the Book Fair ever coming twice in a year when I was in school, but apparently it does here.  In conjunction with the Book Fair it is no TV week.  To help out with this the PTA through a BINGO night.  We felt like this would make a good FHE activity for the family and we could support the school at the same time, so off we went.

Lily provided our ticket to get in, which had been given to her ahead of time.  We browsed the Book Fair for a short time and got each of the girls a Pinkalicious book.  Shortly after we headed to the cafeteria to play BINGO.  We were handed a bag of Cracker Jack's for a snack since the theme for the activity was the Circus.  Russ was a great sport and held Charlotte most of the time we were there.  She kept getting startled by all the loud noises.  It took us several rounds of BINGO before we got one and Lily was able to receive a prize for it.    The prize was a make your own book.  I'm sure she will enjoy that!

While playing BINGO Lily's teacher came and chatted with us for a bit.  I laugh because every time she sees us she whispers to us how smart Lily is.  I guess she doesn't want that to go to Lily's head so that is why she whispers it.  The thing is she must not realize that Lily has big ears too!  Several times Lily has told me that she is smart and I've asked her how she knows that.  Which she will reply that Mrs Broom whispers that to you. LOL!

Just for coming Lily also got to pick out one free book that the PTA was giving away.  She tried to pick an Avatar chapter book, but Russ steered her towards a fairy activity book.  As we were walking out the door one of the PTA mom's grabbed us and said Allie could pick out a book too.  Seriously?!  Well, awesome!  So of course Allie went straight for the same book Lily got.  She's gotta be just like big sis you know!

I'm so glad that we went to this.  It was fun little activity for our family.

Christmas Dresses

I finally got a picture of all three girls in their Christmas Dresses today.  Yes I bought Charlotte a Christmas Dress even though she wasn't born yet.  Lily and Allie were both excited that they got to hold Charlotte.  I was excited that they were all happy and looking at the camera!

Nursing Cover

I finished sewing my nursing cover today!  Wahoo!  I had aimed to get this done before Charlotte was born but as most things go I ran out of time.  Today was the day that I had to have it done since I was going to the adult Stake Conference session and I was going to need to nurse Charlotte sometime during that.  The cover turned out quite nice.  I followed this pattern with the exception of using the home decor weight material.  Here is how it turned out {PS The last picture is a closeup of the material in case you wanted to see the pattern better}...

 

Blanket from Lala

Remember how when my mom was here she bought some material to make into a quilt for Charlotte?  Once that material was in my mom's suitcase I thought I would never see it again.  See my mom has grand intentions of getting projects done, but a lot of times she doesn't.  Imagine my utter surprise when she told me Wednesday that dad had mailed Charlotte's blanket.  I was ecstatic to say the least.  Everyday I have been waiting for my doorbell to ring so I could receive the package.

Finally the door bell rang today and I got my package...ahem, I mean Charlotte's package.  I eagerly tore open the box and pulled it out.  First off I LOVED how the lady mom had finish the quilt tied it up.  She took some of the extra binding and tied it around the quilt after neatly folding it.  See....

But I didn't leave it wrapped up like that for long.  I had to open it up and admire how beautiful and soft it is!

And check out the beautiful design the lady machine stitched on this!  Almost every other square on the fabric has a flower stitched on it!  I get giddy ever time I look at it!

After opening it I called mom to thank her.  her reply was that I had to swear up and down not to get it dirty or let Charlotte drag it around.  This is a "nice" quilt.  It only goes out for church or for pictures.  I'm certainly A-okay with that, besides I have a million other girl quilts that Charlotte can get attached to and drag around all tarnation!  Thanks for the quilt mom!

Snow day?!

It has been on the cold side for the past week.  I know, I know, 20s isn't that cold, but for South Texas it is!  I haven't wanted to take Charlotte out in the cold so I've been driving Lily to school instead of walking her.  Yesterday as I was picking her up from school her teacher stuck her head in the van and said. "School's canceled tomorrow.  More information in Lily's backpack"  

I was intrigued to find out why school was canceled, so as soon as we got home I had Lily show me the flier explaining the closure.  I laughed out loud when read that due to the "high chance of snow" for Friday that the school would be closed.  Lily was soooo ecstatic when telling me how school would be closed because of snow.  I couldn't figure out why she was so happy about it until she said, "And mom, we are going to be able to go out and play in the snow and build a snowman like we did in Idaho!"  I tried to explain that IF we got snow it wouldn't be THAT much snow, but because Mrs. Broom had said there would be snow, there was going to be snow!

When Russ rolled out of bed this morning I asked him to peak out the window and see if had snowed.  Nope no snow.  The roads were wet, possibly icy but from what we could see their hadn't been a real reason to close school.  Oh well, we enjoyed our day with Lily home.  It was a bonus for her considering daddy had the day off too!

Put to work again!

I had another hair brained idea for a project.  I think this one came to me back in June or July.  We've had the wood for this idea since then.  It took up residence in our garage.  I almost started to convince myself that it had come with the house so that I wouldn't feel guilty about not even starting this project.  Russ bailed me out of this project though.  Isn't he great for doing that?!  In one weekend he managed to draw out my idea on the wood, find a router-type tool to borrow, and chisel out the drawing.  I'm excited for this project to start taking shape.  What is it you ask?!  I'll give you a hint....it has to do with Jack and the Beanstock.  Hopefully in the next week or so I will have the reveal of this fun little project.

PS Don't you love how Russ is using our old dinning room table as work bench?!  I think it may be time to buy him a real workbench, lol!

Besties....

Lily and Allie are quite the pair.  They are either torturing each other to the point of driving me insane, or their acting like they adore each other.   Today they mostly adored each other, which was a bit of relief since Lily was home all day due to the school closure.  When they are adoring each other they always do the cutest things.  I caught them sitting in our big recliner just enjoying sitting next to each other.  It made me get warm fuzzies inside.  Also take note in the first picture what happens to the girls hair when momma is too tired to do it and the dry winter weather is wreaking havoc on it.  

{Momma hides head in shame}

Cutie patootie...

I was messing around taking pictures today and took these two of Charlotte.  I thought they were adorable and thought I would share them.

Winner, winner!

Thanks to everyone who played my little guessing game!  It is a fun little tradition that I'm sure I'll carry on when I have more children.  Since no one guessed the date Charlotte would be born the prize for that game has been forfeited.  The winner of the Charlotte's weight goes too.....

MINDY

Congrats Mindy!  I'll be sending you something in the mail sometime.  Give me awhile, I promise I won't forget but it will take me a bit to think of something :)

For records sake here is what everyone guessed on Charlotte's weight:

Deanna -- Dec. 24
Marci -- Dec. 28
Ashley -- Dec. 29
Jewelle -- Dec. 30
Manndi -- Jan. 2
Sarah -- Jan. 3
Stevie -- Jan. 3
Julie -- Jan. 4
Rebecca -- Jan. 5
Elena -- Jan. 6
Tara -- Jan. 6
Mindy -- Jan. 7

Charlotte's Weight:

Ashley -- 8.14 lbs
Manndi -- 9 lbs
Jewelle -- 9.1 lbs
Deanna -- 9.4 lbs
Rebecca -- 9.5 lbs
Mindy -- 9.6 lbs
Elena -- 9.9 lbs
Sarah -- 9.10 lbs
Stevie -- 9.10 lbs
Julie -- 9.15 lbs
Marci -- 9. 16 lbs {LOL!}
Tara -- 10 lbs

Finding her voice...

Charlotte has been such a quiet baby.  She does the normal grunting in her sleep, but it isn't much, and she cries for the typical things like hunger, dirty diaper, gas, etc.  But she doesn't coo at all, that is until today.  I had just finished feeding her and she was quite content sitting on my bent legs.  I was pulling silly faces at her to get her to smile{which she does quite often} when she smiled, laughed at me, then started to coo.  I cooed back at her, and it went back forth like that 3 or 4 more times.  My heart was bursting with love at this point, I was so happy!  Since then I've gotten her to coo two more times.  I love just listening to her and hearing how content she is.