FFF Black & White

I am ALL over this week's theme! Enjoy! To see more wonderful pics go to www.kissthefrog4me.blogspot.com

Hammer Time...

I was in line at Wally World and while I was waiting my turn to check out I was looking over the magazine's. Normally I just gaze over them and giggle at all the outrageous headlines just to pass time. But this time something wonderful caught my eye and I became very excited.

SLOW COOKER SUPPERS

When did this happen? When did I go from reading all about the latest trends (pinched jeans anyone?! or even BETTER MC Hammer pants?!!) to a Wife and Mommy EXCITED (I literally made the OHH face and everything!) over SLOW COOKER MEALS!!! Sigh

Don't get me wrong I am EXTREMELY happy with where my life is right now. It is just a reminder of how fast time really does fly!

Enough for now, the Family Circle Magazine that I did indeed buy is calling my name! I am off to find out how to make "Hearty meals for less then $5"!! LOL Ol'well my IPod will keep me young!

Stop Hammer Time...

Toddler Sharing

This afternoon while Charlotte was napping I let Lily have a snack. She asked for cookies. No prob. She was given 2 little animal cookies. We get back in the living and she gets back up on my lap. She then takes the smallest piece of cookie and says "here Mommy, you eat." I take it and say thank you for the soggy cookies bits that are handed to me.

She then sees her Dora (all dressed up in a princess- looking Faaabulous) she put her fingers back into her mouth and removes even smaller bits of cookie. She then asked me "Dora have some too?" Me just wanting to see where this is going to go shook my head yes. She then pushed the cookie up to Dora's mouth and asked "Yummy Dora?" Happy with the answer that was relayed telepathically by Dora she then nodded to herself and put the cookies back into her mouth.

The things I get to wittiness while at home!!

Holy glue sticks Batman!

What do you get when you use 22 glue sticks, about 10 work hours, and wonderfully geeky oops I mean techy Hubby to help re size things?

Our Rdette's Birthday invitations!!!

I wanted to post these today after I found out that my parents had gotten theirs. They live the farthest, so I figured that everyone else should have already gotten them! I LOVE them! I think in my next life I am going to be a party planner. This makes me so happy to be able to do this for our girls. Plus being crafty helps me release stress. Chris understands and just backs away from the glue gun!! LOL This weekend I am going to work on her goodie bags and Chris is going to cut me out a shape of cookie monster for one of the games! I have already picked out her cake. Chris's co-workers love it when we have something that I need to do a practice cake for!! LOL

Anyway I just wanted to share! We still can't believe our sweet baby Rdette is going to be 1!! Where did the time go!

I need a Golden Ticket!

Veruca Salt:Gooses! Geeses!I want my geese to lay gold eggs for Easter

Mr. Salt:It will, sweetheart

Veruca:At least a hundred a day

Mr.Salt:Anything you say

Veruca:And by the way

Mr. Salt:What?

Veruca:I want a feast.

Mr. Salt:You ate before you came to the factory

Veruca:I want a bean feast!

Mr. Salt:Oh, one of those

Veruca:Cream buns and doughnuts and fruitcake with no nuts So good you could go nuts

Mr. Salt:You can have all those things when you get home

Veruca:

No, now!! I want a ball I want a party Pink macaroons and a million balloons And performing baboons and ...Give it to me Rrhh rhhh Now! I want the world I want the whole world I want to lock it all up in my pocket It's my bar of chocolate Give it to me Now! I want today I want tomorrow I want to wear 'em like braids in my hair And I don't want to share 'em I want a party with room fulls of laughter Ten thousand tons of ice cream And if I don't get the things I am after I'm going to scream! I want the works I want the whole works Presents and prizes and sweets and surprises Of all shapes and sizes And now Don't care how I want it now Don't care how I want it now!!!!!!!!

Remember that one?! I woke up writing this in my head this morning! That has been Lily mantra this week. Every night when she is looking angelic sleeping in her bed we walk out of her room feeling like we are getting off a roller coaster. She is up and down, oops now she is right, oh no look out we are going back down! ARGH!

Poor baby nothing makes her happy, she had tons of accidents this week. We know that she is still learning and accept that. However, there was one day (Wednesday-I will never forget it!) I went into their room in the morning before breakfast to open windows. She was already in there rocking her little rocking chair. We were talking sweetly and all of a sudden I heard a trickling sound and there she was peeing all over her chair! The sound I heard was it running through the wicker! You know that saying.. who took a p*ss in your cheerios? I learned first hand that this week that the person that made up that saying MUST have had a 2 year old! LOL

Today was our best day. I got the two big girls (Jewel is staying with us while her Momma gets everything moved up here) outside for a while as Rdette napped. So that was nice for all of us. I brought them back in just as R was getting up from her nap. I went ahead and tried again to nap Lily. She is NOT a good napper at all. Never really has been, but I think that is might be the root of what is going on now. So I went ahead got her in her bed. I had to remind her a few hundred times to get back in her bed. Maggie called and while we talking she got quiet. I am thinking this is great. I got off the phone to go wake her up. I swing open the door getting ready to sing a cheery song only to be met with her STANDING on the same rocker she had peed on. She had pushed it up to her dresser and proceeded to remove ALL of her special books off of the top shelf! That earned her a time out and the removal of the rocker for good from her room.

Now she had a rotten week over all emotionally. There was however a very sweet moment that happened today. This morning, we heard Rdette "singing" @ her normal 6 am wake up. We have learned to wait her out a little because every once in a while she will sing herself back to sleep. Chris and I were still in bed and all of a sudden their door opens and closes and we see the bathroom light ( we have been leaving that on for Juice at night) and then nothing. So I whispered to Chris that maybe we should go check on her. He said to wait a few seconds and see what she does. About 30 secs later the bathroom door is closed completely and I see a little brown head come into our room and shut our door. At this point Chris and I are giggling so hard, but still trying to pretend not to see her. She walked right up to Chris's head and said "Daddy I awake." He asked her if she went to the potty and she did, then promptly asked for her bup! Then I got to have 10 mins of alone cuddle time with her before Rdette started to howl.

It is funny though how in those 10 sweet mins in the morning everything is completely erased from the day before.

I am going to be taking her out tomorrow morning for some Lily & Mommy time. Maybe the one on one will help!

FFF- Best Stuffed Friends

Here it is two posts BACK TO BACK! You know that you are impressed! :-) I love FFF!! If you want to see more great FFF go to www.kissthefrog4me.blogspot.com

Rdette doesn't have a lovey yet, so I just used the cutest pic of the week!

Lily can't go without Nite Nite Bear. The poor bear has had more bleach baths and is still going strong! He was used to help the transition into her new Big Girl bed earlier this year. She was just over two and didn't want to give her bed to her sister! Nite Nite Bear was just what the doctor ordered!

Can you find Lily?!

Lil and Elmo looking Faaaabulous!

Big hugs!

Still kickin'

This week is thankfully almost over! It has been a while since we have had a week so bad that I needed to flee. Tonight, I retreated to the craft store, the quiet, craft store. All together now... Ahhhhh... feel the Chi from the silk flowers...

The worst part is there hasn't been one specific thing that has made this week so bad. It was one huge sticky ball of yuck all week.

It all started on Saturday...

We were up in PA having a lovely visit with Grandma. The hotel (more like no-tell motel:-) should have had "I love the 70's" from VH1 playing the background. Seriously the only thing missing, ok two things missing were a disco ball and a round bed!! Oh my! But, we were there to see Grandma so we just prayed that nothing would follow us home!! Anyway back on track, we had made it up the mountain in one piece, and had actually been able to visit with Grandma on Friday night before we put the girls to bed. Saturday morning we got up and had breakfast in our room. Chris and the girls were all ready and I was taking a quick shower. I was just about done when Chris throws open the door and yells "It looks like we are going home!!"

I about fell out of the shower, we had just driven 5 hours the day before and now we have to go home! He went onto say that our dogs had gotten out and my sister could not find them. The back gate had either been opened or it wasn't closed all the way. The thinking is that it was the latter. Between my sister, Danny, and Chris's sister they were conducting nothing short of a grid search of our neighborhood. They were gone, blink, gone.

Chris and I decided that getting right one the road at that very moment would do nothing but upset the girls who were already feeling our stress about the situation. Lily was walking around the room with her big brown eyes as wide as she could make them asking in a shaky voice "where my doggies, where my doggies?" We told her that they were on an adventure like Dora and that Maggie and Lizzie were off to bring them home. Chris then left with the girls to go back to visit with Grandma. We were going to leave at 1pm if the still had not turned up.

I stayed back and re-packed everything that had just been unpacked, and played telephone. We asked them to go to the Animal Shelter to put in a lost dog report around noon. When they got there, the people immediately asked them if they were looking for two Golden Retrievers. They told them where to go and they ran to see if it were them. Thankfully they had just been turned in. A lady had found them on a corner looking confused and she rescued them. We had to send them over a fax with our ID to prove that they were indeed our dogs and bail them out.

The best part of the story is that when Chris came out of the bathroom (Rdette was sleeping) to tell Lily about the dogs she looked up and said "my doggies, my doggies, I am happy!" then she went right back to eating the ice cream Grandma helped her smuggle out!

We still decided to go ahead and leave on Saturday afternoon. We were about half way home when Lily had had enough and melted down. I can't really say I blame her. I wanted to do the same thing! Right after the meltdown pull over I remembered that Michael Phelps was swimming for #8 that night. I then announced that Momma would not be happy if I missed this! LOL As we got closer to home I shouted (quietly both girls FINALLY fell asleep) 'I am coming Michael, hang on, PLEASE DON'T SWIM WITHOUT ME!!!' LOL It helped break the tension from the day.

We made it home got both girls in the bed and collapsed! That is just one of the last 5 days. I am hoping that the girls are better tomorrow, they have to be.

One good thing...well again two things...Charlotte's birthday invitations were mailed yesterday! WAHOO, and I did in fact make it home in time to see Michael Phelps! Way to represent B-more HUN!! All you Marylanders better had smiled! :-)

More tomorrow.. it is FFF-best stuffed friends! Until then pray that our two year old returns to her sweet self soon or Momma is gonna lose it!

Who else...

is completely addicted to the Olympics? On Sunday Chris convinced me to watch Michael Phelps swim in our bedroom. I got up during the commercials to ran into the bedroom!! Then when it was time for the team relay I was up on my knees doing that silent screaming thing trying not to wake the girls! Chris was NOT amused when I smacked his belly during that! LOL 100% addicted!

While we watch that in the evening I have been working on a special project. I don't want to say anymore then that right now- but they are soooo cute! I will explain more when I am done.

I am sorry that I haven't commented on the blog's, I have been reading and I will be catching that back up soon. On that topic this is for my blogging Momma's- I am thinking about adding a links section. If you would like me to include your blog just let me know it is ok. I don't do anything w/out permission on here! ;-)

I have SOOOO many stories from the week. This weekend we are going to Northern PA (Tawanda) to be exact to visit Chris's Grandma. We haven't seen her in a while. My sister and Danny are going to be here to sit on the boys for the weekend! Thank you guys!

Will write more soon.. the Olympics is on!! :-0

FFF Having A ball!!!

ENJOY!!!!

Rdette's ABC's

This is the ABC's of Charlotte! As complied by Mommy and Daddy

A. Attached or single? Single and will be for a LONG time (per Daddy!)
B. Best friend? Lily and her bottle
C. Cake or pie? Hasn't had these yet...
D. Day of choice? The days she is allowed to crawl all over and investigate the world... so that would be everyday!
E. Essential item? Gas-Ex LOL But VERY true!
F. Favorite color? We will have to wait and see
G. Gummy bears or worms? She hasn't had these yet
H. Hometown? Where her heart is
I. Indulgences? Tiny bites of brown ice cream
J. January or July? Unsure right now!
K. Kids? None yet. Age 50 before Daddy is even going to think about that one!
L. Life isn't complete without? a nice warm bath, bottle and a snuggle with Daddy
M. Marriage date? Chris interjects here and says that this isn't going to happen b/c she isn't going to grow a day older then 6! Little girl forever! That or until he gets a gun licence!! LOL
N. Number of brothers & sisters? 1 sister-Older
O. Oranges or apples? Apple in her feed bag!
P. Phobias? Not getting enough food, and having a dirty diaper!
Q. Quotes? The one and ONLY one time so far she has said Momma to me!
R.Reasons to smile? FOOD!!
S. Season of choice? This year I would say summer
T. Tag peeps - Will default to Mommy's answer..
U. Unknown fact about me? She is starting to stand alone for short periods!!
V. Vegetable? Sweet potatoes
W. Worst habits? Biting! Those little teeth hurt!
X-ray or ultrasound? Cat Scans of her head are tops of her list!
Y. Your favorite food? Zwieback toast, puffs, really anything she can feed herself. That list also includes dirt, rocks, and crayons!
Z. Zodiac sign? Libra- just like Mommy!

Lily's ABC's

This is the ABC's of Lily! As complied by Mommy and Daddy

A. Attached or single? Single and will be for a LONG time (per Daddy!)

B. Best friend? Juice and Bear

C. Cake or pie? Both, but would take brown (chocolate) ice cream over both!!

D. Day of choice? Birthday- She is like the Mad Hatter!! We have UN-birthday's Evey single day! She loves Birthdays!

E. Essential item? Bear

F. Favorite color? Purple (just like her Momma!)

G. Gummy bears or worms? She hasn't had these yet

H. Hometown? Mixco, Guatemala

I. Indulgences? Singing!

J. January or July? January b/c it is her birthday month! She is already talking about her birthday cake!

K. Kids? None yet. Age 50 before Daddy is even going to think about that one! Although she loves to mother her baby dolls!

L. Life isn't complete without? Bear and brown (what she calls chocolate) ice cream! Oh and a bath!

M. Marriage date? Chris interjects here and says that this isn't going to happen b/c she isn't going to grow a day older then 6! Little girl forever! That or until he gets a gun licence!! LOL

N. Number of brothers & sisters? 1 sister-younger

O. Oranges or apples? Oranges

P. Phobias? Swiper from Dora, and the vacuum

Q. Quotes? 'That's Elmo's world!' Elmo and of course 'I do it!!!' My favorite thing she is doing right now is calling me 'my mommy' and Chris 'my daddy'.

R.Reasons to smile? Swimming!

S. Season of choice? Any that she can get outside and play, I think that this summer has been pretty great though!

T. Tag peeps - Elmo, Cinderella, and Dora

U. Unknown fact about me? Lily is double jointed in her hands.

V. Vegetable? Anything Mommy can disguise as "Princess food!" If we can pull that off she will eat anything.

W. Worst habits? Picking her nose...thanks Daddy!

X-ray or ultrasound? As far as we know has never had either

Y. Your favorite food? Milk, spaghetti, and ham and Cheese- thankfully, not all at once!

Z. Zodiac sign? Capricorn- just like Daddy!

I'm it!

Soooooo excited! I have never been "tagged" before to play a game! Thanks Kathy! http://whenrudysaysuhoh.blogspot.com/

This is the ABC's of me!



A. Attached or single? Attached sometimes it seems surgically! ;-)

B. Best friend? Chris

C. Cake or pie? Cake

D. Day of choice? Friday, because either Chris is off OR his hours at work are reduced and he gets to be home!

E. Essential item? My book bag. It has everything that the girls could ever need! It is like Mary Poppins' bag!

F. Favorite color? Purple

G. Gummy bears or worms? Worms cuz they gross Chris out! LOL Sometimes it's just fun to do!

H. Hometown? Exactly where I live now.. really in the same house

I. Indulgences? Music I <3 my Ipod

J. January or July? January Lily's and Chris's birthday, plus I am still coming off of my Christmas season high!!


K. Kids? The two most wonderful little girls a Momma could ask for!


L. Life isn't complete without? Chris and our girls. Oh and Chocolate ice cream!


M. Marriage date? June 24, 2000


N. Number of brothers & sisters? 1 sister-younger


O. Oranges or apples? both


P. Phobias? close spaces esp Tunnels... didn't happen until the girls came..very weird!


Q. Quotes? 'Do or do not, there is no try' Yoda- Yes, Chris I pulled out the Yoda just for you!! ;-)


R.Reasons to smile? My girls and of course Chris! Also the fact that for the first time in 6 weeks we are ALL staying home this weekend!


S. Season of choice? Fall


T. Tag peeps - Lily and Charlotte ( Kathy did this and I thought it was really cute!)


U. Unknown fact about me? Hmmmm a girl can't reveal it all can she....


V. Vegetable? brussel spouts


W. Worst habits? Absentmindedly picking at my feet


X-ray or ultrasound? X-rays are boring, I LOVED the many ultra-sounds I had to have when I was prego!


Y. Your favorite food? Crabs/shrimp YUMMY!


Z. Zodiac sign? Libra

10 months!

Charlotte is 10 months old today! Only two more months until her big day! It has been surreal watching her grow. We missed all this with Lily, so we treasure each time we get to witness a new skill!

At 10 months she can/has:

6 teeth

Bite- I have the marks to prove it!

Crawl ALL over!

Clap her hands

eating more and more 'real' food

drinking from a sippy cup at least once a day

feeds herself small foods

laughs and smiles all day

pulling up

starting a slow to moderate cruise around the furniture

talks up a storm!

gives lots of kisses

shakes her head No

bounces up and down to dance

loves the taste of crayons!

Steps up on small steps when she crawls

loves to play

likes it when Lily sings to her!

Roughly this time last year!

I love my Calendar girl!!

Last year we submitted 3 of Lily's pictures into http://www.guatadopt.com/ it is a FANTASTIC forum that gives adoptive families as accurate news as one can receive from Guatemala. Evey year they produce a calendar. We found out about the year Lily came home, but the submissions were only open to parents who had their babies home.


They do a great job making sure that every child that is submitted gets a place somewhere on this calendar! Lily is an August girl!! We keep it in our kitchen and were very excited to flip it to this month! If they offer it again we will be submitting both girls this year!



I found a picture of the proof they sent out too all of the parents before we bought them. I did my best to remove all the other kids faces. I don't post pictures of people unless I have their permission.

Chats with Lily...

Here are a few I have been saving...

I keep a dry erase board in our kitchen. I update it about every six weeks and when I do I draw Team Henry complete with names. Lily LOVES this and will tell everyone who comes into the house who is on the board. "Rdette there, mommy there, daddy there, and lilliana there."

One day she was reciting this to Chris. After she identified all of us he asked her "and what does that make us?"

her response... "happy"

Yesterday I was let her wear her new shoes in the house to help break them in a little. I got them all unhooked and handed each one to her and she put them on. She got the biggest smile on her face and ran all over the house yelling " I love them, I love them!" My jaw was on the floor, she had never said anything like that before. I told her that I was glad that she liked her shoes. Then she started yelling "I love new shoes, I love shoes!!!"

She is going to be my diva!!!


We are working with Charlotte trying to get her to say Momma and Dada. She will say both but only if she is mad and wants us! Lily knows we are trying so she will get right down next to her and tell her "Rdette say Momma, say Momma, awwww good baby!"

OMG it is so sweet. Charlotte just looks at her smiling, and then pulls her hair!!! Lily handles that well. She just tells her in her firmest voice "No hair Rdette, here book" or whatever it close to hand her. It helps that she pulls my hair ALL the time so Lily doesn't take it personal!

99%

That is how close Lily is to being...


FULLY POTTY TRAINED!!!!!!


She has been doing so well! It is soooooo true though, that if they are ready then it is a breeze. She hasn't worn a diaper in over a week and has only had a very few accidents! She goes in on her own to pee! I am only requested if she has pooped because she wants to "show you, nom ere!!"

Everyday when she poops we call Daddy and leave him a message! She gets soooo excited and wants to tell everybody!! It is too cute!

We are still using nite-nite panties and bye bye panties (pull-ups) and will for a while to come just to make sure. She growing tooo fast!!! :-( But we are sooo proud of her!!

Pop-Pop's Groupies!

We have been quiet the traveling crew this summer. This weekend was no different. I didn't post about our upcoming getaway because we were taking our dogs and there would be no one home. Our house was broken into two years ago so I try to play it safe!

This past Tuesday Chris and I were doing some forward planning of our summer weekend and we realized that if we didn't go to visit my parents this weekend we more then likely would not get to until after Charlotte's birthday. Not cool. We decided to make plans for this past weekend. So we packed up all 4 of the babies and off we went!


We had a really nice time, as always too short! On Saturday night Pop-Pop pulled out his guitar and played a few tunes for the girls to rock out too! She'll be coming around the mountain was a BIG hit!!! :-)

Mom-Mom and the Big girls making pancakes!!

Charlotte eating her first bites of pancakes!

550

August 1, 2007 was a scary day in my pregnancy. I wouldn't say the scariest, but absolutely in the top 5. I saved 1 and 2 for the days that we were told that I would more then likely NOT carry Charlotte to term, and Charlotte's birth when my uterus didn't clamp down as it should have.

August 1, 2007 stands out for me because it was the day that we found out that I had Gestational Diabetes. No biggie for most women just a few diet restrictions and maybe some medication. It becomes scary when they use words like, uncontrolled, insulin, birth defects, still birth, low birth weight. I could go on and on just as the Nurse educator did. It was terrifying.

Once I got home and started to digest all the information. I promised Charlotte that if they told me I had to stand on my head for the next 2 months then that was what I was going to do. In the following weeks it became a joke that standing on my big prego head would have been easier then what I was going through.

Unlike most women no matter WHAT I did/ or didn't do my fasting blood sugar number would NOT go down. There was one morning I think that it was the weekend of my baby shower I got up and peed in my little cup had ketones (not a good thing) then I went to check my sugar number and it was 91. That number just made me crumble. I lost it in my kitchen, while my family was in the other room.

I felt like I was failing Charlotte and I wasn't doing anything wrong. My doctors ( 3 of them at one point) wanted my numbers much lower then 90. I was seeing the doctor two times a week for stress tests and every time I went he increased the insulin that I was injecting into my tummy. To the point that I had to change the needles I was using to hold MORE insulin!

I went ahead to give myself my morning insulin dose and just couldn't do it. It literally bounced off of my pregnant tummy. Bawling at this point I asked my Mom to please help me give it. She did so w/out a thought. She was more worried about me then I could have even have known.

Once I gave birth to our baby girl it was only then I sat down and counted the number of times I stuck myself with needles. It came to approx 550 times in two months and a couple of days. It is hard to wrap your head around, but then again I am for grateful for a couple of things, 1 that Charlotte was by the grace of God born normally w/out any sort health issue, and 2 that after she was born (about 4 weeks later ) the diabetes resolved itself.

I would repeat every single second of those two month, everything if it meant that I would still have that baby girl in my life. Yes, I would even stand on my head! :-)

FFF

This weeks theme is CRAZY hair! Enjoy! To see more FFF go to
http://www.kissthefrog4me.blogspot.com/

Charley doesn't have much hair yet!

OK, so not really crazy... but it is SOOO cute!!