Christmas Performances

Rose with her class at her Christmas performance...

Lily our little "angel" with Evie at her performance.

Better Late Than Never

So.... Jack and I celebrated our numero 36 in December. I am so lucky and blessed to have my husband to grow old with... and knowing that we do this together makes it just a little bit easier.


In this first picture I'm sporting the beautiful birthday crown that Rose made Jack and I. She was so sweet and wanted to decorate and play party games... we played pin the tale on the donkey!


In the next picture the girls are decorating our cake... Evie tried this year, but honestly she was elbow deep in icing and it was just better if she licked a spoon!

Rose and Lily provided entertainment after dinner by dancing to ballet music... they were so graceful. And as you can see by Rose's face very focused.

And here is the birthday boy and girl getting sung to. Jack looks none to thrilled by the whole shabang, but I think it was just a bad shot.

From the Trenches of Mothering

First Wave of the Attack
Target: Lily
Location: Lily's Bedroom
Time: 0900 hours
Yesterday morning Lily comes running into my room. "Mommy there is a lizard in my drawer!!!!" Obviously, I don't believe her. "Lily go get dressed we are going to be late. There could not be a lizard in your drawer." Lily now starting to cry, "Mommy there really is a lizard in my shirt drawer." I stop dressing and examine if she is telling the truth. "Well is it alive?" "Yes, Mommy!!!" So, the next few minutes are filled with me getting the appropriate lizard catching gear (two cups) and trying to catch this lizard. Which is successfully and safely done ...the lizard was quickly released outside.

Second Wave of the Attack
Target: Diaper Genie
Location: Evie's Bedroom
Time: 1000
Today while vacuuming Evie's room she decided to wage war on the diaper genie. First she figured out how to open it. (This is no small feat. As many of you know who are familiar with the older model of the Diaper Genie.) Then she began filling it up. With what you ask.... clean diapers of course. Lots of clean diapers. Then once she was done with the diapers she moved on to other things she could reach on the diaper table. By the time she was done the genie was over flowing and I was done vacuuming... which allowed me to move on to cleaning up the diaper genie.


More waves of the Attack on Mom to come.

Blog Catch-Up

October has flown by and now I'm in the middle of November... so, before time totally escapes here's what we've been up to...

My brother came to visit...and Uncle Vern is always a hit with the girls. Rose and Lily's favorite past time with him was playing hair salon and putting bows and ribbons in his hair. I can't tell you what a great sport he was. We also got to go to the pumpkin patch. (Vern's first time ever.) And as you can see in this picture Evie has warmed up to him with no problem. Our littlest one is having the classic case of separation anxiety and whenever she goes to someone it really warms my heart. I would say though the highlight of Vern's visit was going to see Metallica in concert. What a BLAST and what a coooool rocking band they were. I can't tell you what a unbelievable concert it was, but it was. Vern did some classic air guitar and I learned the classic hard rock concert fist pump!!! Sweet.

Our next big event was Lily getting her training wheels taken off. As you can see in the picture she has mastered two wheels with ease. One day she just looked at me and said she was done with the training wheels and was ready to be a big girl. So we took them off and within a few minutes she was off. This step in childhood is one of my absolute favorites. The pride, joy, exhilaration that is on your child's face is priceless. (And yes, it feels like yesterday that I was watching Rose do the same thing.) I will say though, that Lily has already had some daredevil bike riding disasters, but she always gets back on!

Of course one of the best parts of the fall is the leaves. And this year they were in full color. We've had some phenomenal weather paired with kite flying, leaf jumping, swinging , and just all day playing outside. I know that NC has nothing on WV for fall fun, but this time of year is just the best!

Next, we had Mom and Carmen down for Halloween. (The weather was awful....) But, we still were able to carve pumpkins and enjoy time with them. Mom was the supreme candy giver on Halloween night...surprising us with a little Rag Doll costume when we returned from trick or treating. This year Rose and Lily decided that they should dress as Hannah Montana. Not the most creative costumes, but they loved it. This year has been about Hannah. Because it was so warm during trick or treating the girls both threw off their wigs and decided they were just rock stars. "Mommy this wig is way tooo hot. I don't know how Miley does it?" As was told to me while a wig was being thrown at me in route to another house.

And sweet, sweet Evie got to wear the Clown costume that I had made a few years before for Lily. Of course she had no idea what was going on... and you can see that hat was barely worn for the picture.

So, that's about it for now. On to November!

Rose at the Public Library

Most of you know that Rose loves to read. She definitely loves to read more than I did at her age. Some days she can sit for an hour and devour a book. Therefore, periodically we go to the library to fill-up on reading materials. Right now her favorite author is Daisy Meadows. I know not a Caldacott award winning author, but her fairy characters have captured sweet Rose's brain.
Upon arriving at the library Rose takes a B-line to the Daisy Meadows' books... the lady has written about 40 books on various fairies, so there is always a book Rose hasn't read. But, on our most recent venture to the library Rose could not find a single book by this author. When she found this out Rose states rather loudly for the Library, "Oh, NO! There are none left? Mommy where did they go? I know this is the spot they should be!" The Librarian who is in earshot comments that quite a few little girls came in that day and had cleared them out. But Rose could check the cart of books needing reshelved for any.
She takes a mad dash over to the cart and finds "The Sunflower Fairy"...and lets me know that she will continue looking while we go over to the picture book area for a while. After spending a few moments with Lily and Evie looking at their books Rose returns. "Mommy, the Librarian said that she could save Daisy Meadows books for me and let us know when someone returns them!"
Now the fun begins. We all go back to the Librarian and she explains the book reservation policy. I agree to let Rose get a few and she excitedly starts jumping up and down.

She then looks very seriously at the Librarian and states, "Can I tell you something?"
"Of course."
"When I read the Daisy Meadows' books it's like I fall into the book and am really there with the characters."
Now the Librarian's eyes get very big and a wide smile crosses her face, "That is WONDERFUL. How many books would you like to reserve?" OK Rose has totally won this lady over and she probably would have let us get all 40. Because for the next ten minutes she carefully helps Rose select the books she hasn't read... reading title after title from the computer's card catalogue. I had to stop the reserving at 4 saying, "We can always come back."

What a fun conversation to watch unfold, and as an X- English teacher my heart was proud.

Tri It!

OK so here are two pictures from the triathlon! Het, Becky, and I did it! What a great experience and something that could be totally addictive. Training for this was hard, but amazing... waking up at 6:40 to run is something that is pretty unheard of for me. And getting to sneak away on Wednesday evenings with Heather to bike, run, or/and swim was really a treat... ya know girl time.

I am so thankful and blessed to have two girlfriends that went along with my crazy idea 6 months ago to do this event. It was a great journey to get myself in shape and to show my girls that working out can be such a rewarding and fun experience.

Now the goal is to get through the holidays and continue staying in shape. Another goal possibly? Het's mentioned a 5k... a 10k??

A conversation with Lily

When Lily is in the car we listen to music. More specifically we listen to the Hannah Montana Movie CD. (The one that I burned over a month ago because I thought it would be fun to listen to something other than Kid Bop 14... which we've listened to for almost a year now) So, on our way to ballet it was just Lily and I in the car and I wanted to use this time for a quality conversation..... Here is a glorious replay.

"Mommy turn on the music."
"Lily, I don't want to listen to Hannah Montana."
"OK, Mommy can I please listen to Hannah Montana."
"It's not the please. I just wanted to talk to you."
"OK Mommy." Insert annoyed 5 year old voice.

....at this point I really didn't have a conversation to start, so I struggle....

"Lily, why do we have trees?" Told you I was struggling.
"So, when it rains we can stand under them so we won't get wet."

Pause for a better question...

"That's a good point. What's your favorite flower?"
"Lily"... ok really struggling at this point. I decide to redirect to something that I know she likes.

"So, what is it about Hannah Montana that you really like?"
"Her songs."
"Okay, but what about her songs do you like?"
"I like that they rock!"
"Yeah, they do rock! But, what about the words do you like?" Total English teacher popping out.
" I don't know. I like how they are fast."
...... long pause........

"Mommy can we listen to Hannah Montana?? Now??"
"Sure."
Insert rad guitar and rocking drum beat........."And it's the best of both worlds."