The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The picture is for good measure to prove that I still love these babies who drove me almost crazy today.

The Good: It's 6:30 pm and both of my children are fast asleep (at the moment atleast).

The Bad: We had a rough day with little napping, lots of crying and whining, and both girls battling runny noses and on the verge of getting sick AGAIN.

The Ugly: Mommy is flying solo for most of the weekend.

Ugh.

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And I just want to share this little conversation that I had with H. this morning:

Hattie: (tripping and almost falling over a cord in the living room) "Son of a gun!"
Me: "Uuh, Hattie, who told you those words?"
Hattie: "Sean did."

Is it weird that she refers to her daddy by his first name when she knows he's in trouble ;)?

Sharing *Toddler Style*

This picture warms my heart and cracks me up at the same time. I am so proud of Hattie for sharing one taste of her "special lollipop" with her sister. She made it very clear to Mary Ellen before giving her a taste that she could only have one lick :). Look at the way she's holding Mary Ellen's arm down, far away from the lollipop. Oh yeah, she's a bossy one, but aren't all big sisters?!?! :) And look at that baby's face! She is as happy as a clam for two reasons: Number one, she's getting her first taste of sugar - the good stuff! And number two, her sister, who walks on water in M.E.'s book (atleast at this point), is paying attention to her. That baby was in pure heaven :)!

I've been a little sparse on here lately because we were sick, and then sleep was all messed up for the kids (meaning Mama wasn't getting much). I've been tired and kind of uninspired to blog lately. Then this week, we've been outside so much because it's been BEAUTIFUL. We're loving the weather. Oh, and I've been a little addicted to facebook lately. I've had an account for awhile but just recently got into it. So computer time has been spent there catching up with people I haven't talked to in ten years and my other 100 or so "friends."

Today when I went and got Hattie from her nap, she sat up in bed and whispered (in a shockingly secretive way), "Mama, come here. I have a secret." So I came over to the bed and inquired what her big secret was, and she just sat there and stared at me. She apparently recently heard the word secret but has no clue what it means. I'm glad she's starting a good trend and telling Mama all about her secrets, though :).

And this is how Mary Ellen looks 99% of the time, minus the bow (I just put that on for pics :).).

The girl loves to suck her fingers. All day. Every day. She still is not rolling from back to tummy but rolls from tummy to back fairly easily, not a good thing when you're a tummy sleeper, though! That is, not a good thing for Mama.

Mary Ellen had her first taste of solids this last week. I gave her rice cereal which totally constipated her, so then we went the non-conventional route and went straight to prunes. Now she'll probably never eat a vegetable in her life, and it's all my fault! I've stopped the cereal for now until we can get the plumbing working well again, and I still haven't taken a picture yet of her eating solids *for the first time* for the baby book. Bad mommy! Poor second child. I need to do that.

Oh, and tomorrow is the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. Our church is having a prayer service at 7:30 that Sean and I are going to. Please pray that we will someday be able to celebrate the anniversary of the day when abortion becomes illegal in our country. Though it seems impossible, we know that nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37).

And if you haven't done so yet, go here and sign the petition to fight against the Freedom of Choice Act.

Blessings to all!

My Love Turns *27....

Today is Stephanie's *27th birthday.

I am so blessed to have such a wonderful, caring, intelligent, hot wife who is also a great mother and great friend.

I love you Stephanie!

*OK...she is actually 28 today but its a long story.

PS - I MADE THE CAKE ALL BY MYSELF!

Saturday

This past Saturday Sean kept the girls again, so I could take my dear friend, Christie, to lunch for her birthday. At the last minute I decided to surprise her with a little birthday/baby shower celebration. Little Samuel is due to arrive sometime in mid-March. He'll be her second son, but it's always fun to have some new things for each baby and to just get together and celebrate a new life. She wanted to go to The Flying Pig in downtown Richmond, which happens to be the perfect, little, quirky place to throw a shower.

I was so thankful so many of her friends could come at such short notice. And she was truly surprised. Here's a shot of everyone who came to celebrate:


When I got home, Sean was soooooo eager for me to go look at the computer, so I walked over to check it out, and this is what was on the background:

He totally thinks he is THE MAN for scoring an almost perfect score in bowling on the Wii.

I don't really know why I'm posting this. Maybe it's for lack of nothing better to blog about. I just thought it was pretty funny that he took a picture of the t.v. to PROVE to me (and maybe Matt :)) that he scored a 299.

So Wii are kind of obsessed........

and a little lame, too........

and I totally think he cheated somehow.

Cousins

I had the privilege of spending Saturday afternoon childless (thank you Sean!) with Laurel and Katie - lunch, shopping, and the chocolate bar (ever been? GO if you haven't!). But before we headed out, Katie got some great pictures of the girls in Sean's parents' backyard. Here are just a few of my faves!
There was a tea party.



Some dancing.....


and giggling........

even a proposal! :)

They were so cute, but they definitely let us know when they had HAD IT with the picture taking. My sweet Hattie-girl is definitely a" by the clock" kind of operator thanks to her mama who is BIG into schedules, so when 11:00 rolled around and lunch wasn't being laid out, a tummy began to growl as did the two year old who owns said tummy.

Katie also got a few of Miss Mary Ellen who is still the snot queen in our house. I AM SO SICK OF SNOT. I AM SO SICK OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION because of snot. Luckily the snot has almost vacated the nose but has moved on to the chest, so she can now breathe fairly well but now has to deal with constant coughing attacks :(. She has not been herself, and I was surprised that Katie actually captured a few smiles.


What can I say? Snotty, tired babies are still ticklish!

And I think this was the last picture taken of us - a tired mama ready to leave two tired babies with Daddy for the afternoon. Luckily they both took good naps for him.

You can look in the background and see that Wendy was still a ball of energy, though :).