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Family Fun in Florida

Posted on by Amy

We’ve had a wonderful weekend. Yesterday was full of traveling, beginning at 5am, but we were able to pack in a visit to my Grandpa C and then get to my Grandma B’s house for dinner. Lass got to meet her Great-Grandpa.


Miss got to show off for her Great-Grandpa, counting and dancing and playing. I could not get her to say “Arrivederci” though. My Grandpa always ends a phone call with, “As they say in the homeland, arrivederci!” and we have been working on it for weeks. She says, “Ayovechi.” But of course she got shy when we tried to get her to say it for him and she wouldn’t do it. It was so great to see him and spend some time visiting though.
We got to my Grandma B’s house last night. My parents are also here visiting my Grandma (and my mom was at my Grandpa’s when we got there yesterday). Today Miss had a big day playing with family. My mom, ever the children’s librarian, has held storytime several times today.

Great-Grammy has made paper doll chains for Miss over and over.
Miss loved them, but kept pulling them apart and then dismembering the dolls. I managed to save the last set my Grandma made for her. I put them away so I can put them in Miss’s baby book for her.
My Grandma is a wonderful musician, and at her house there is always music. Miss loved playing the piano.

She also had a lot of fun with this very old ukulele, which I remember from when I was little.
Then we checked out some quilts my Grandma is making. Miss kept asking to “wrap up” in the quilt tops my Grandma is working on, but was very happy with this old quilt instead. This quilt was pieced by my great grandmother, and then finished by my Grandma. Miss loved playing in it.
It was perfect for playing some hide and seek.
Peek!!
She enjoyed playing with the many golf balls my Grandma has around, which made for an interesting experiment with her shirt.
31 golf balls was the breaking point where her shirt came untucked and they spilled all over the floor. She thought that was pretty funny.
Here’s a shout out to one of my most faithful readers!!
Snuggles with Grandma.

Lass loves sucking on her bottom lip. Her first tooth broke through today, the left-middle bottom tooth.
Miss spent some time hanging out with my dad, surfing the web. Here they were looking at this blog.
She was really enjoying wearing her sunglasses at night, but as she was looking at photos from her birthday post, she realized she needed some more accessories.

She finished up the evening singing a fun new song she learned from my aunt.
She kept begging my aunt to sing this funny little song with her. It’s about chewing gum. She doesn’t even know what chewing gum is, but this is definitely her new favorite song. So. Fun.
P.S. Happy Birthday to my brother and my brother-in-law!!

Family Dance Party

Posted on by Amy
You may have guessed from some previous posts that we love music and dancing in our house. My hubby plays the guitar. We sing. We dance. Music is always on. Miss badgers her daddy to put her up on his knee at his computer and listen to “moosic” with her. Tonight after dinner, we had a rocking family dance party.
Miss danced with her Daddy.


She showed off some fun new moves (that’s chalk and probably a bit of dinner – homemade potstickers – on her pants, BTW)

Miss wanted to dance with her Mama. She asked to hold both of my hands while we were dancing, but since I was holding Lass, she just grabbed on to her sister’s foot.

Lass thought it was all pretty fun too.
We spun and bounced and laughed.
Miss showed off some moves to her sister.

And to wrap it all up, lots of big hugs and snuggles.


These are the moments I will always remember.

Movie Therapy

Posted on by Amy

Today was one of those days. The kind of day that leaves me begging for naptime, and cursing the fact that of all days, today my two girls did not nap at the same time. Lass has not been sleeping well, so I’m more tired than usual. Miss is being ornery. And being tired certainly has me bit less tolerant of typical toddler behaviors, like her looking right at me with a mischievous grin and doing, very deliberately, the exact thing I just instructed her not to do, or something she knows very well she is not allowed to do, like putting her feet on the table during a meal or climbing up onto the kitchen counter. I forgot to get out the venison to thaw for meatloaf, so I made omelets for dinner that tasted horrid because they got burned while I was preventing Miss from breaking more eggs (she thought this was great fun in “helping” me to make dinner) or climbing up the front of the stove to see what we were cooking. And I couldn’t even go out somewhere today to help maintain my sanity because my husband is working nights this week and he went to bed before I managed to take a shower and get dressed, so I sat around with greasy hair in my PJs all day. For the record, as I’m typing out this pity-party post, I’m beginning to laugh at myself and at how, well pitifulI am sounding. My mom is probably making a “sup-supping” sound at me right now.

Anyway, I always find that the best therapy for days like today is to remember the good moments. The bring-a-tear-to-your-eye-wow-I-have-the-best-job-in-the-world moments. Because of course these greatly outweigh the crappy moments, both in number and in magnitude. So even on days like today there are plenty of these happy moments to reflect on. Like when Miss climbed up on Lass’s crib while I was getting her up from her morning nap and said, “I yuv you sissur.” Like the belly laughs from Lass when I tickled her chubby thighs during her diaper change before bed. Like the funny wave and “Hi Momma, hi Sweetie!” from Miss this afternoon when I went to get her from her nap. Like the fact that Lass finally took a whole bottle from her daddy this evening (hooray!). Like when Miss unexpectedly grabbed tightly around my neck as I was getting her in her seat for her snack and said, “I yuv you Momma.” And just in case thinking about these and other great mommy moments from today weren’t enough to brighten my mood (they were), I made a few fun video clips from the past few days that make me smile and occasionally laugh out loud.
Here is the sisterly love video that goes along with the photos I posted yesterday. Miss starts out singing to Lass and then gasps, and I love how she says, “She spit a little bit!”
Here is video documentation of my sweet, non-sleeping girl rolling over.
And here is my favorite video of Miss singing. She has really gotten into singing songs from her favorite show, Yo Gabba Gabba. The first one here is “I’m so, I’m so sorry. I’m so, I’m so sorry. I can fix it, I can make it better.” When she doesn’t know the words, she just wings it. And you can’t really tell from the video, but she is looking at her reflection in the glass doors of our fireplace while she’s singing this one. The second song I prompt her to sing, because I love the accent she sings it with, “Keep troying. . .”
And that’s my movie therapy for tonight. Lass has already woken up twice (and only been in bed for an hour and a half), so this could be a long night. I’m going to go wash my greasy hair and try to get some sleep.

Christmas – Take 2

Posted on by Amy
We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day at the Farm with my in-laws. It was a very fun time. Miss got dressed up for Christmas Eve.

She had a blast playing with all of her cousins (Lass missed out on this photo as she had gone to bed).


And of course, she loved opening her presents.

She loved her new Yo Gabba Gabba backpack.

She took a break to read one of her new books.
She stayed focused on her task in spite of all the commotion around her with 25 other people also opening gifts.
Then it was time for Santa. We took the stockings down from the mantle and spread them around the living room upstairs while the kids were playing downstairs. Here are Miss’s and Lass’s.
Then Santa stomped around, yelled, “Ho Ho Ho!” and all the kids ran up the stairs and out onto the snowy deck to catch a glimpse of him running away down the driveway. One of my brothers-in-law also had a flashlight with a red light that he made look like Rudolph taking off. Miss went out with her Daddy to see, but she was cold and I don’t think she actually saw anything since she didn’t really get what she was looking for. But she did enjoy digging into her pretty stocking (all the members of my husband’s family have gorgeous stockings made by his aunt, the kids’ are all personalized).
Then my husband found an item that was not put there by me. Could it have been Santa?

He misplaced this ancient and much-loved sweatshirt a year and a half ago and has been pining for it since. He has asked everyone he could think of if he might have left it at their house. And now he has it back. We have no idea who brought it back to him (well, we have a good idea, but no one’s ‘fessing up) and it doesn’t really matter anyway. He’s just happy to have it back. He’s thrilled. In fact, I think I heard him say something like, “This is one of the best Christmas presents ever.”
Miss really loved her new placemat with animals on it.
She loved counting the different animals.

On Christmas day it was time for playing in the snow.
She and her daddy went out with all the kids to sled on the big hill. She requested to make a snowman.
She had really enjoyed being out the previous day, but on this day it was much colder and windier. She didn’t stay out long at all and didn’t get a chance to make her snowman.
We’re going to have a warm-up later this week, so maybe we’ll get out to make a snowman then. This morning, Miss finally got the kitchen that Santa left for her and Lass. She loves it. As I type this, she is checking on her “pizza” in the oven. Time to go eat!

New Favorite Song

Posted on by Amy

My big girl loves Neil Diamond. A girl after my own heart. She asks for this song over and over, and dances like mad every time. In this video she’s a little camera shy, but it’s a good example.

And I have a fabulous video of Lass giggling, but for some reason I couldn’t get it to upload to my iMovie. I’ll figure it out and post it soon.

The Christmas Tree

Posted on by Amy
Miss’s first look at the Christmas tree.

It wasn’t decorated yet, except for the lights and garland
and the bow on top.
But she was so fascinated by it. She kept touching the lights and blowing on them, like she thought they were candles.
Then I pulled out the ornaments we got at Hobby Lobby the other day, along with all our other ornaments, and the fun really began.
Check this out:

When we first started decorating she was saying “Tick-a-teek” when she looked at the tree, which is how she says “Trick or Treat!” So we corrected her that it is now time for Christmas and said “Christmas tree” to her a few times. Well, shortly thereafter, she started saying “Kiss tee” for “Christmas tree.” But as you can hear in the video I thought she was saying she wanted to kiss something. Duh. But anyway, I’m was so happy that we caught her on video saying “I yuv a snowmin!” because that is one of my favorite things to hear her say, “I yuuv it!” that I don’t care if I sound like a doofus in the video.
It was so much fun to let her help decorate the tree. Most of my ornaments have a story behind them. They are the ornaments that were on our tree when I was little, or they were made by someone I love, or given to me by someone I love. I told Miss the story of many ornaments as we put them on. “Your Great-Grandma B made this one,” “Auntie and Unka gave that one to Mommy,” “Grandma gave this to you for Christmas last year,” etc. She seemed to have a blast helping with the ornaments and just kept wanting to get more and more. This morning she was just as excited by the tree.
She repeatedly touched all the ornaments and went from one side of the tree to the other saying, “Touch snowmin,” “Touch Sinta,” “Touch sharky” (sparkly – this is what she calls the old-school styrofoam-ball-with-sequins ornaments that my mom and aunts made in the 70s), “Touch Pulo” (Pluto), etc. And she commanded me to touch each ornament she named after she did.
I fear that I could get into a rut this month of posting nothing but “Oh-my-gosh-it-was-so-amazing/awesome/wonderful-to-see-Miss-do-this-holiday-related thing-for-the-first-time” gushing posts. I guess I’ll call this fair warning, because it’s likely to end up that way. I just get all teary every time I see Christmas through her eyes. And it’s pretty cool. So I’m going to write about it, and probably gush some too. And then I’ll probably do it again next year when Lass is old enough to start to understand all of this for the first time. Hell, I’m getting teared up just thinking about it. Motherhood never ceases to amaze me.