Week of July 5 - 11

This week was the start of our second session of swim lessons.  Overall swim lessons consumed our lives.  We spent all morning either getting ready for swim lessons or being at swim lessons.  While I'm grateful my kids are learning this skill, I will say that these are rough days.  It is exhausting to get everyone ready and there, and then entertain them while they are not swimming.  Which for Max and Bree was the whole two hour block of time.  Any way, how about some pictures...

 July 6th --

I walked in this morning to find my little man doing this in his crib.  Eeps!  When did he get so big that he can pull himself up on his crib?  Guess it is time to lower his mattress.

 

July 9th --

Seriously this kid is growing too fast!  I looked over today and max had pulled himself up to the table.  I may have shed a few tears...not of joy either.  I'm happy this little guy is progressing in his physical abilities though because there has been a bit of concern about that subject.

Mustache anyone? Why yes, we may have been a tad bit bored at swim lessons this day. :D

July 11 --

Just bug bites is what the doctor said a couple weeks ago.  So tell me this.  Why would a bug bit him in the EXACT same place a few weeks later?  Maybe the doctors will believe me now that something is amiss.

I haven't had a ton of scrapping time.  But when I do get time to make things it is a huge stress relief for me.  This was a card I made for one of my LilyPad assignments.  It is hard to tell from the picture but those palm trees are actually dimensional and sit higher than the card.

Despicable Me goes to Church

Russ went home yesterday to take care of the kids.  Today he sent me this picture of Allie.  I couldn't help but smile at it.  Allie wanted to dress up like Margo for church. He let me know that Allie wore these glasses to church and kept them on the whole time.  Russ knew that I wouldn't approve of this but he didn't have the heart to tell Allie she couldn't wear them.  He let Allie win this battle because they made her happy, and right now we need more of that!

Allie Reading

Allie is doing so well at reading!  She has been reading a lot of books lately.  Most days she comes home with a new book because she has passed off her book from the previous day.  I admit that sometimes it a rough process.  She is tired when she gets home from all Kindergarten and the last thing she wants to do is do homework.  We've worked out a pretty good schedule though that me and her work through the book at least once and then she gets to read it to daddy at night.  It is like a reward for her to read to daddy so it helps her through the tiredness.  I'm so proud of my gator and all her hard work!

Mrs. R

I was really worried about Allie at the beginning of the school year.  She was one of the youngest in her Kindergarten class.  Luckily Allie got a pretty good teacher.  I admit we've had some rough patches with this teacher, but in general she has done a lot of good for Allie.  Allie absolutely adores Mrs. R and is always trying to please her.  At the open house tonight we had a nice little chat with Mrs. R.  She let me know Allie is doing great in class but just needs to work a little bit on getting her work done.  (Allie gets anxiety easily, so if she can't figure something out right away she'll just work herself up over it)  Mrs. R also said she hopes I don't mind that she calls her, "Alliebug or Ladybug" sometimes like me.  It took me awhile to figure out what she was talking about until I realized she has heard me call Allie by the nickname "Gatorbug".  Oh well, you can never have too many nicknames!

Quarterly Interview -- Allie

Age: 4
Favorite Color: Pink

Favorite Song:  I love you

Favorite Movie:  Brave

Favorite TV Show: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

Favorite Game: Mousetrap
Favorite Toy:  Lala Loopsies

Scared of:  Dinosaurs (might I add this is because Russ has been watching dinosaur shows on the History channel and has been letting her watch!)

Favorite Food:  Sandwiches

Pet Peeves:  Hitting Me

Favorite Things to Do:  Color, play with sprinkles

Bad Habits:  Hit my sisters

Good Habits: Play with my sisters

Favorite Thing to Say:  I love you

What I Do That Make My Mommy Laugh the Hardest: tickle mommy 

What Does Daddy Do at Work: eat

What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up: Be a Princess 

Who's Your Best Friend:  Anders

What was your favorite thing in 2012? Play the game Mashed Potatoes

What do you want to learn this year? Read books

Goal: Go to school

Tink

Becky gave Allie this Tinkerbell doll for her birthday.  That doll has been loved more than any of our other dolls I think.  Lately though it has gotten to the point that we can't go anywhere without Tinkerbell tagging along.  Tink helps out with all the chores too.  Uh, nothing against you Tink but you sure make chores take F.O.R.E.V.E.R to get done!  It is funny the stages our kids go through.  I knew I would forget this one of Allies so I just had to capture a picture of her with Tink {crazy hair and all}!

Ear infections and bronchitis

After Allie fell asleep on the couch yesterday I called and made a doctors appointment for her, and decided to take Bree in too.  She has had a cough for a could of days and it is really starting to sound wheezy.  Also, by looking at her chest I felt like she was retracting a bit.  We of course had no luck getting in to Dr. H.  He was booked so we had to see the PA.  We are getting wary of the PA's but I figured it was better to see someone than no one.

Turns out Allie had a double ear infection and a pretty severe cold.  Really?  I shouldn't have been surprised considering she went into hibernation yesterday, but I still was.  I reminded the PA that she's allergic to most medicine, so she gave us the good old Z Pack for her.  Even though her cough was sounding pretty bad too the doctor said it was all in her head and hadn't moved to her chest.  She thought that if I had waited to come in it probably would have moved down there, but the Z Pack should stop it.

Poor Bree didn't fair quite as well.  Her cough was indeed in her chest, and she was retracting a bit.  The doctor said she was wheezing moderately, and had bronchitis.  The treatment?  Breathing treatments for five days.  

After the appointment I walked the girls out to the car and got in and cried.  I felt so bad for Bree.  She's so little to be getting sick and having to do breathing treatments.  I also just had no idea how I was going to do this.  Char was still on her breathing treatments and now I had to do Bree's as well.  Oh and lets not forget the tiny little fact that Russ should be starting his outage work any day now.  : ( 

Feeling kind of defeated for the day i elected to go out to eat for dinner.  Russ met us for dinner, and then afterwards we went and got the medicine for everyone.  I'm sure I'll make it through this but I'm not sure how.

Here is poor Bree getting her first dose of medicine.  She was a champ at it.  Fell asleep right away and just sat there for daddy.  She's so small the smallest mask doesn't even fit her and we have to just kinda hold it there.

Someone's Sick

Today Allie had sat down on the couch while I was feeding Bree.  She watched a little TV with me.  I finished feeding Bree, looked over and was shocked to find Allie passed out on the couch.  It was only 12:00, no where near nap time.  Sigh...somebody is sick.  Every time Allie falls asleep this early in the day she's sick.  Her body goes into hibernation or something when she is sick.  The funny thing is she only has a small cough.  Usually it takes more than a cough to bring her down.  Guess we will be going in to the doctors to find out just what is wrong!

Ouch!

Allie came up to me telling me her hand hurt.  I figured Sprinkles had bit her again when she was rough housing.  She showed me where it hurt and I gasped out loud.  There was a splinter in her hand and it was getting quite red around it.  Poor thing has probably had it in there since yesterday when the girls were playing out side.  I got the tweezers and pulled it out.  Allie was quite brave even though she is scared out of her wits when I have to do anything like this.  Her braveness may have stemmed from me telling her that if she didn't hold still and let me get it out we would be going to get a tetanus shot at the doctors and he would get it out.  She's even more afraid of shots than me fixing her up.  Mean mom award right there!

Happy Birthday Allie!

Allie has been counting down the days until her birthday.  She couldn't wait to turn four!  She wouldn't have known her birthday was coming except Lily helped her remember, and proceeded to remind her each day there after.  Our day started with usual opening of one present.  What do you think Allie got?

Her birthday outfit of course!  And boy was she excited that it had Minnie Mouse on it.

Most of the day was spent just like any other day.  However, I did let Allie pick out our lunch menu and movie for the day.  Before dinner I grabbed Allie and took her outside for a photo shoot.  She has been a weird kick lately and has been pulling funny faces for pictures.  At first I was annoyed but as I flipped back through these I recognized that a lot of them really show her spunky personality that not many people get to see.

These two aren't fab pictures but they show off Allie's special birthday hairdo.

And a few of cheesy grin ones that I loved.

I get this pose a lot lately when she is upset about something.  She wasn't upset here, she was just trying to hide a smile.

 My favorite photo....

Shortly after the photo shoot Russ made it home and we went out to dinner.  Allie chose McDonald's...surprise, surprise.  We enjoyed our take out and then came home for the real fun...PRESENTS!

Allie received some money and monkey jammies from Lala and Papa Joe.  Monkey's are her favorite, and she loved that the monkey was dancing.  She loves to twirl around and dance right now.

Allie also received some new moon dough, a Minnie Mouse that changes clothes, and a Barbie car, all from Mom and Dad.

So sad this picture doesn't have her in focus cause her expression on receiving this was absolutely priceless!

Her favorite gift even though you can't tell by her reaction was by far this Strawberry Movie from Charlotte and Lily.  Lily picked it out for her, and boy does she have a good sense of judgement!

After presents we gathered in the kitchen for cake and ice cream.  Allie requested a Rapunzel tower cake for her birthday.  I obliged even though I wasn't able to put much effort into since I've felt so crappy lately.  But Allie loved and was excited about it, that is what counts right?!

Allie couldn't quite get all the candles out, so daddy secretly stepped in and helped her blow them out.

Allie declared this her best birthday ever, which is always a nice thing to hear!  We are so happy to have her as part of our family.  She brings a much needed balance of quietness and spunk to our family.  Allie always has a way of getting us to smile and laugh.  We love her so much!  Happy Birthday sweet Allie!

Swim Lessons: Session 1

Swim lesson time is here again!  They ran June 4 - June 14 this time. The girls were very excited to take their swim lessons this year.  Probably because we've been going to the pool quite often on weekends and they have learned to love the water even more than they already did.  Lily is a fish in the water, Allie loves the water but is very hesitant to swim on her own.  She doesn't like putting her face in the water.  I was interested to see how swim lessons would go for her.  I got to sit on deck by myself while Charlotte went in the daycare at the Rec Center.  That was a relief considering she get extremely unhappy when someone else is swimming and she's not.

Lily was signed up for the Snapper class{Level 3} in the 6+ age group.  She was in class with a lot of kids much older than her, not unusual since that tends to be how all her swim classes have been.  Her class was in a very awkward position to take pictures of her, which was sad, but I did get a few.

 Working on the dead float....20 secs. 

 That's a long time!

Waiting on the side of the pool for her turn.  

This was practically the only time I saw her 

waiting appropriately and had to capture it.

 Backstroke, probably needed the most work for Lily.

Hard to see, but this is a picture of Lily doing the front crawl and side breathing.  

Her teacher told me multiple times throughout the week that she was a really good side breather.  

When I finally saw her swim I was quite impressed with how well she did it.

 Last day of swim lessons the kids got to go down the "big purple slide".  

Lily was so excited because she got to go down by herself, 

and she didn't have to have anyone catch her at the end!

 Lily passed with flying colors.  Her teacher recommended she move up to the Level 4 class which would be in the lap pool.  Deep water...hmmm....I don't think Lily is quite mature enough for that yet.  I'll have to think on it, as of now she is signed up for Level 3 again.

Allie was signed up for the Level 1 class in the 3 - 5 year olds to begin with.  After the first day the teacher came over to me and said she had to bump Allie up to Level 2 because she was too advanced.  I was confused and asked about her putting her head under the water to which the teacher replied that she had done it a ton of times all by herself. I was surprised but agreed to have Allie moved up.  AS I watched her in the Level 2 calss the next day I was glad she had moved up.  It did seem more on her level.

 Waiting to get in the pool.

Life jackets were used several different days.

Apparently teaching life saving skills at this level is high on the agenda.

One of my favorite pictures of Allie waiting for her turn to jump in and swim.

Blowing bubbles while swimming.

Hmmm...why isn't her head in the water?

Just another fun picture of her waiting her turn.

Swimming with her head in the water!  Wahoo!

Look how proud of herself she was for doing it!

Seriously how cute is this?!  

This tactic worked amazingly well to free 

the kids arms up to practice swimming.

Back float

 At one point the teacher took the kids over into the lap pool to practice swimming.  

Scared me {and Allie} to death that they were in the deep water.  

Just look at the nervousness on Allie's face.  

Once she was in she did really well though.

On the last day of swim lessons she got the same treat as Lily.

She went down the big slide with her teacher though.

They also dived for rings on the last day.  

Allie's teacher helped her stay under long enough 

to get it because she doesn't have enough weight to get herself down.  

Take notice how far her teacher is leaning over in the picture.  

Because she was leaning over like that she got a good wop on the nose

 when Allie excitedly popped up real fast with the ring.  Poor teacher!

I was quite surprised when Allie handed me her report card and she had passed as well.  I went and asked the teacher about Level 3.  She assured me that Allie should do fine, but that it would be a harder class for me.  So I know have her signed up for Level 3.

I'm glad session one is over.  It has been hard to spend our whole morning getting ready, being their, and cleaning up afterwards.  The days seemed to fly by without much more getting done.  However, I'm super glad they have the opportunity to take these lessons.  They both learned a lot and I saw them both improve immensely!

Conversations in the Car: Allie

Driving down the road we see a man running with an ipod on his arm.

Allie:  Mommy, daddy needs to go running with his iPod.

Me:  Daddy is too busy he has to finish the shed first.

Allie: I helped daddy get twirly things for his tools.

Me: Yes, you went to the store and got drill bits for dads drill.

Allie: It was the blue store.

Me: Lowe's.

Allie: No mommy it was open, we went inside.

Me: LOL!  

Allie:  Mommy, why are you laughing?

{I almost had to pull over I was laughing so hard!  She of course thought I had said "closed".  It cracks me up how a man running can lead to such a random conversation.}

Shhh....I'm dead!

Allie and I have worked out a great little routine in the mornings.  I put Charlotte down for her nap, then I put in a movie for Allie.  I lay down on the couch with Allie sitting on my feet.  I sleep and she watches her movie.  If she moves at all I wake up.  I don''t have to worry about her getting into trouble this way.  When her movie is over she wakes me up and we go about the rest of our day.  Last week, Allie's movie had ended but I was still sleepy.  I got up and got her an apple for a snack and then laid back down on the couch.  Allie came over to me and said, "Mom is this a red apple?  I need a red apple!"  I assured her it was.  I began dozing in and out but for the most part I was awake.

Allie happily munched on her apple for awhile.  Then I heard her talking to herself.  This is not unusual at all.  She tends to tell stories to herself under her breath.  I didn't pay much attention and her murmurings lulled me to sleep.  I woke up a few minutes later and cracked an eye open.  With my one eye I saw an apple lying on the floor.  I get quite angry when the girls leave food around so I promptly told Allie to pick up that apple right now!

Allie's response was....

"Shhhh....I'm dead!  I'm Snow White!"

I opened my eyes a bit wider and noticed the apple was laying on the ground next to Allie's outstretched hand.  She was laying on her side just how Snow White does in the movie!  Apparently Allie had been pretending to be Snow White and I {the queen} had given her a red apple.  Upon eating the apple Allie fell to floor dead!  When all of this fell into place in my head, I got quite a chuckle and was officially awake. I wish I could have got a picture of the scene, but Allie promptly got up and finished eating her apple.  Guess it wasn't so poisonous after all!

A Day at the Park

Days where the weather is in the 80's with little humidity are treasured around these parts.  We've been lucky enough to have a bit of Spring weather this year, and we've been soaking it up.  Lots of park days have been happening and the girls have been in heaven! 

Today I tried to get us all to the park in time to meet some friends there, but it just didn't happen.  Both Charlotte and I took too long of a nap.  I decided that even though we had missed our friends we were going anyways.  So off we went.

It was about 1:00 before we arrived and it was getting hot even without the humidity.  I let the girls play for about half an hour. MacLean park is one of our favorites and they really enjoyed themselves.  Days like this are so fun.