January's Creativity

Because of being sick part of the month, I didn't do as many layouts as normal.  I still got a few done, but not as many as I was expecting.

First time creating a year in review layout.  Hopefully going to carry out this tradition from here on out.

 Totally excited to start working on pages from my trip to DC back in 2001!

A page for my brother.

 So excited about this card!  It received a GSO on the Me So Scrappy blog.

Sweet Words

Charlotte's little voice wandered into the kitchen "Mamamamama"  I peaked my head out as I saw her start to move toward my bedroom.  I called "Char-char" wondering where she was going.  Charlotte quickly turned toward me and started crawling quickly saying "mama" over and over.  She must have been looking for me in my bedroom.  It clicked with me then as she smiled at me that Charlotte had said her first real word, and how sweet it was to hear her say my name.

Lily went to doctor's and has sinus infection that moved over to her eye and gave her pink eye.  Yet another round of antibiotics.  We are thinking that it may be time to get her tested for allergies.  The fact that she is having headaches and is already getting "nasty" sinus infections {the docotr's words} it may be time.  Very wary of doing this because it is a blood draw, and guess who would get to hold her down.  Yup me.

Even though the doctor didn't feel like she was contagious the school felt she was.  So she spent most of the day at home.  It was nice having all three girls home.  They had a lot fun playing together.  Some days I wish Lily didn't have to go to school, and I could teach her at home, but that just isn't realistic for us.

12 Month Checkup -- Charlotte

Height:  

31.25 in -- 100%+

Weight:

21 lb 5oz -- 50%

Head:

45 cm

Charlotte did well at her appointment.  The doctor said all of her congestion is from teething.  He declared that her molars should be in within the next month or so. She was quite nice to the doctor until he tried to look into her mouth.  She then punched him in the nose.  I laughed over that one.  She got three shots today.  The nurse who gave them was HORRIBLE.  She gave one shot, then put the band aid on.  Then repeated the same sequence.  Poor Charlotte was screaming her head off in pain by the end of it all.  And it appears that yes Charlotte is still a giant!

I know....

I know I haven't posted here in three weeks....

I know my blog is a tad bit boring...

I know I have about 10 posts halfway done...

I know I have no time to finish them or the ones from today...

I know life isn't going to slow down so I better just get over it...

I know I could have probably finished one of my half done posts with the time it took to right this one...

I know I sound whiny....

I know you'll love me anyways because your my friends and family : )

I know updates will be coming soon....I PROMISE!

Got me some style!

One Charlotte's favorite things to do is still sister's glasses and shove them on her face.  Then she takes them off and the whole process starts over again.  Rarely does she get them on the right way, and I always get a good giggle at the way they end up on her face.  Yep that is a bit of drool running down her face.  She is teething again.  Should be a great month!  {hear the sarcasm in my voice?  You should since it takes Charlotte a whole month to get in one tooth, and she is a BEAR about it!}

Curly Toes

A few days ago I looked down at Lily's toes and knew it was time to take her to see a podiatrist.   The problem is with her three smallest toes on each foot.  Instead of them being nice and straight they curl underneath her other two toes.  Recently Lily has been complaining her feet hurt too.  Not good!  Since Russ has been on vacation he volunteered to take her to the doctor.  I'm tired of seeing doctors, we've seen too many recently.

The podiatrist told us two things.  

1.  Lily needed new shoes which would stop the hurting feet.  Apparently her shoes have worn too thin and it's causing pain.  I was surprised because her shoes have a ton of tread left, but apparently there wasn't enough.

2.  Lily has what is called curly toes.  It is exactly what it sounds like.  Her toes are curling.  Apparently it is a common thing in children, and highly genetic.  She probably gets this from me.  Lily has the problem pretty badly and the podiatrist says that if we do not try and correct it now it will cause problems for her when she is older.  He didn't describe what those problems will be but I'm sure they are not good.  He suggested that we try taping her toes for awhile to see if we can help them straighten up.  He wants to avoid surgery {and so do we!} so we are taking his advice.

Monday through Friday I get to wrap Lily's 3rd and 4th toe together in an effort to straighten them.  She gets Saturday and Sunday off so her toes can "rest".  I sure hope this taping works! {I forgot to take a picture of her toes without the tape.  I'll do that sometime to show how bad they are}

New Year's Day

I have some goals and things relating to the new year that I want to post about, but that will come in the next few days.  One goal that I do want to mention though is 12 x 5.  I've heard this called many things, but 12 x 5 is what I'm sticking with.  Essentially it is to take a family picture of the FIVE of us for the TWELVE months of the year.  Sifting through our pictures of 0this past year I noticed the trend that we didn't have many family shots.  Our family is one of the most important things to me, and I want to be able to remember exactly how we were at each stage of us growing up together.  And also in the back of mind{WAY WAY WAY back in mind} is the nagging thought, "If anything should happen to one of you, wouldn't you want a current picture of how you all are?"  YES, I DO!  So I've made the choice to take my pictures of us as a family.  Today I started out with a more traditional shot of our little family, but I hope as I grow as a photographer and learn more about my camera that we will have more impromptu and fun family photos to share.  For now enjoy us in our Sunday best!

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The girls got their own special photo shoot too.  My goal is to shoot a photo of the three of them each month too.  By this time a certain red head was showing her true colors and may have had to been bribed with a large piece of candy to get her to smile and sit for the photo.  That girl is sweet as sugar most times, but boy does she have a sassy side to her as well!  Little Miss was done too since she had skipped lunch and nap time in order to go to church.  There was a lot of pick-her-up-for-two-seconds-to-make-her-happy-then-plunk-her-down-and-run-out-of-the-picture.  Big sis, well she smiled after being told she could have a piece of candy too.  I swear they act like I'm torturing them!  We got this semi-decent picture of them in the end.

We had a pretty low key day until we realized we had a "family emergency" on our hands.  We had cleaned our carpet over the weekend and it kept smelling mildewy.  Russ came to the conclusion that we had missed a step on cleaning our carpets and they possibly could be mildewing.  Since that was a health hazardous to us, Russ started to re-clean the carpets.  I had the fun task of keeping the three girls in my bedroom entertained for 2 hours.  NOT FUN!  While Lily and Allie watched a movie on our portable DVD player Charlotte kept herself occupied playing with the snake.  I stayed occupied by taking pictures of her : )

The movie ended and Russ was almost done.  So the girls played Angry Birds on my bed.  Russ had made up his real life version of it a few days ago to keep Lily occupied at the doctors office.  She taught it to Allie and they had a blast knocking over each others houses.

Finally the girls were able to go to bed when Russ finished up with the carpets.  I was never so excited in my life to have them go to bed.  Our house doesn't smell quite as mildewy so I think the rewashing has worked.  I'm sure we will find out for sure tomorrow!