My little helper

(at least she's wearing an apron)


She will brush Allie's teeth but not her own...

Pack 'n' Play

Move over Graco...Tupperware may be onto something. Toy and baby storage. Gadgets with only one function are so out.

He's Better

Thank god. Becuase, without filling you in on all of the details, it did NOT end with the vomit. The upside is now all of our carpets have been steam cleaned.

Murphy's Law

My BFF Siri got me a groupon for 2.5 hours of house cleaning for Christmas. Despite what my family says she did not get it for me because I am dirty...only because she's thoughtful and knows what a fantastic gift this is for ME. Well, you know how this story unfolds don't you? I probably don't need to explain what happened, just WHO it happened to be.


After we put Madeline to bed last night she came back in the room saying Rudder was making noises. Kip went to investigate and came back to report that Rudder had puked. I can deal with a lot of gross things but I have a really tough time with barf. Kip cleaned it up. I thought that was the end of the story. Nope, he had more in store. I got to clean up the most foul smelling throw up in the history of throw up this morning. Maddie dry heaved, I threw up and Allie sat on her little stool and colored and said "stinky". It reminded me of the Chevy Chase Christmas Vacation movie where the old man is sitting in the living room with the squirrel while everyone else has run away. She had no clue. Every time I walked back in I dry heaved. I called my mom to see if she'd come get it but alas, she sucks.

I had to remove the rug from the room and scrub everything down. There was bile everywhere.

However, after cleaning up my fifth pile of barf today (B-Z also got the honors of cleaning one up) I was finally sitting down to eat some lunch when Rudder wandered off. I was too slow. There was a tsunami of water and foot bits coming out of his mouth. I have honestly never seen anything like it. Of course he did it so it hit the rug and went into a closet so everything had to be emptied out. After that he seemed to perk up a bit and ate some food. I've been sitting here watching him for the last 15 minutes and am hopeful that he finally got out whatever he ate that was upsetting him. Otherwise we're off to the vet.

Poor Ruds :-(

He definitely had upside down eyes all day long.

A little nervous

I'm a little nervous about posting this but figure enough time has passed that it might actually be OK.

Remember her tonsil surgery? Yeah, recovery sucked...but it didn't. Her throat hurt so much that she stopped sucking her wrist! And hasn't gone back to it since. We are beyond thrilled! Yay for Maddie! Now the question is, do I acknowledge it to her?

Fairy Boats

Kip took Maddie and Allie up to Whidbey Island this weekend to work on the boat and visit with my dad.

Some funny quotes Kip told me from this weekend:

Maddie: Dad, is the angel boat fast or slow?
Kip: I don't know what you're talking about.
Maddie: The angel boat.
(this exchange went back and forth for awhile)
Kip: Oh, do you mean the FERRY (she was thinking F-A-I-R-Y) boat?


Maddie: The forest is very quiet and the bushes are very quiet too.

After attempting to fly kites with no wind:
Maddie: You guys are on your own, I am going to the pond.

Halfway through

We're halfway through her first year of preschool. I still don't know what she does all day but whatever it is it makes her tired. She knows her colors and numbers in Spanish and lately has been talking Spanglish which is hilarious. Some mornings she's convinced that she does not want to go and that I "take forever" to come and get her. Somehow four hours later comes entirely too fast and she's pissed that I am there to get her. Ahh, can't wait for the teenage years.

The Children's Museum

We always park by Teatro Zinzanni when we go to The Children's Museum. It's maybe a third of a mile (?) which takes forever when Allie insits on walking the entire way. How cute is she though?






Maddie has been asking when it's going to be summer a lot lately...so we decided to head over to the boat and imagine a nice warm breeze.


Then we met up with a friend from middle school and her son Abe (who is exactly one month younger than Pal)

Maddie was a little worried about how empty our fridge was so she decided to stock up.

Allie was a little worried we were low on her main food source...so she stocked up too.

Instead of napping

She built a tree. Notice the star light hanging just above her pile of bears. Yup, that's the tree-topper.

Another Tip:

Remember when your kids were infants and people would "joke" about taking them in the car to get them to sleep? Turns out it works well for toddlers too. Just make sure you're on your way to an activity so they're extra well behaved after their 15 minute car ride nap.

Cankles, thankles, and other important life lessons

My, it's been a long week. I am thinking of changing the blog's format to more of a Q & A, advice, tips, etc... type blog because after this week I've seen it all. First up, why you should not have cankles. They get stuck in crib bars. Maybe this should instead be labeled why you should not use antique cribs that have bars that your cankles can get stuck in. Either way you want to look at it is fine:



It was all fun and games until that foot had to come out. I panicked a little bit...came to my senses and instead of contorting her foot into all sorts of crazy positions I simply pulled the bars apart and voila!



For our next installment:

• What do you do when your one year old hits you?
• Nutella and habanero flakes...what do they have in common you ask? Well nothing unless a 3 year old decides to feed a 1 year old the peppers and you need something to temper the flames that a 1 year old will actually eat through her screams and tears.
• What do you do when your one year old doesn't like the cereal you picked out for her and she decides to chuck the entire bowl across the table?
• What do you do when your three year old tries to sneak by you with her hands behind her back? Well, duh! Check it out!!
• What do you do when you check out what the three year old is hiding only to realize there's a nice trail of blood behind her?
• What do you when you follow that trail of blood to a very large kitchen knife and a mangled apple?
• And finally, what do you do when your three year old refuses to take a nap because she's not tired and yet falls asleep at 5:00 when you're driving to the gym? D-A-I-L-Y.
  

Can't wait for this rain to stop. We need to burn off some energy.

Third time's the charm

I wasn't expecting this. At all. We go to swimming two days per week, Mondays and Wednesdays. Kip has Mondays off so I have some help when it comes to trying to force a 17 month old into a bathing suit, swim diaper and four floats (not to mention the actual pool) and trying to get a 3.5 year old OUT of the pool when it's time to go home.

Maddie and I had a pep talk before we got to the pool. Well, not a pep talk per se but she got the message when I said, "you pull any of your stunts again we're not coming back. Ever."

I am a paranoid Paula when it comes to being late for things. On time equals 15 minutes early. SO, I had an errand to run and the car needed gas so somehow I managed to show up at swimming 30 minutes early. 30 minutes to try and entertain a 3.5 year old who desperately wants in the water and a 17 month old who desperately is running for the door. Except, they surprised me. Maybe showing up early helped Allie. We sat and watched the lesson before ours. None of the other babies were crying. None of the other babies needed their mom to hold them down on the edge of the pool. So apparently she wasn't going to do any of these things either. She loved it! She hammed it up for everyone. She didn't cry when she went down the slide and her head went underwater, nor did she cry when they dunked her head in.

And apparently Maddie believed my threat. Now if only she'd take a nap!

Allie's first official swimming lesson

Photo is blurry b/c this kid was not going to stick around unless I held her to the side of the pool. Can't wait to see what lesson number two brings.

Sleeping Beauty

There's just something about seeing this little bundle of energy sleeping with her rosy, angelic little face poking out from the covers that just makes my heart sing. Even better now with those tonsils out, no more oxymoron: cute girl sleeping with 60 year old man snores.

Nook Book

Another Christmas gift that's getting a ton of use around here. The Nook is Barnes and Noble's version of the Kindle except it's in color and will read out loud to you. It's been fun downloading books and listening to them. Unfortunately I might need a second job with all of these books. Both girls have mastered the touch screen and can turn the pages of the book. Allie doesn't really get when to do it but Maddie listens to the story and turns the pages at appropriate times. Pretty amazing that they can figure this technology out so quickly.

Dog Park

Back before Christmas we had errands to run at Redmond Town Center so Rudder came along and we went to Marymoore dog park. I swear that park always has the most gigantic dogs! Our trip was cut a tad short after Maddie fell in a frozen mud puddle but not before we wore Rudder out. The back of my car is still covered in mud thanks to the struggle of trying to get him in the car. He did not want to get in. So I was trying to pick up a squirming dog and shove him in the car. We impress a lot of people when we go out, yes we do. (He's still a little PTSD after I closed his tail in the hatch. What a weenie.)

Caspar Baby Pants

I got new speakers for my car for Christmas from Kip. Instead of making my car go boom as I prefer I get to rock out to these guys.

Kip and Maddie's obsession.

It's definitely MUCH better than your average kiddie music band. (it's the guys from the presidents of the united states of america)

Christmas

Christmas Eve at Nonna's house as usual. This year Sophia's famiy joined us which was fun. Her parents, her dad really, loves the girls but Maddie is always very shy. Maybe the $50 he slipped her will warm her up. :-)











When we got home we decided to leave out food for Rudolph. Rudolph looked a bit more like a dog than I thought he would but he ate it!



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Christmas morning Nonna, Pofo and Aunt Sonja came over to open their presents.

And then we went back over to Nonna's for more present opening


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And then we went to Mill Creek for a rousing game of Greedy Pig and up to the cabin Sunday morning for Cabin Christmas.







Allie loved to sled. She kept saying, "weeeee!" when they'd go down the hill. I have no clue where she learned that one.

Thank you everyone for your very generous gifts. The amount of love you show these two girls astounds me.