It's not the end of a decade

This is a pet peeve of mine. When you count something, do you start counting at zero? No, you start at 1. So the next decade will start with 2011. Do not make me come over there. Let's see. I became side tracked. Oh yeah, this is Lily and Madi snuggling in bed and watching cartoons this morning. I would sneak by and watch Lily cover M with her blanket and snuggle her. I feel so lucky that they are both so taken with each other.

I was worried about Lily. Why? Well, she did stab me in the belly with a ball point pen when I was pregnant. That seemed a good indication that she wasn't happy with a new baby coming. But M is so happy and easy going. I think if she took up more of my time by crying or being needy Lily might have more issues with her. I've honestly seen Lily walk up to Madilyn, wrap her arms around her, kiss her and nuzzle her head.

Of course, I'd like to take partial credit for setting such a good example. :) Lily still cracks me up. She can be such a good angel - like the one in the photo - and then throw a fit because I said hello to her. I know that's who she is and I tolerate it pretty well. Also, she is one very social butterfly. We were at Target on Sunday and she had to go and say hi to every kid that she saw. When I was checking out, she went and hung out with a family of four girls (ouch!). I knew where she was because she was glued to one little girl. Normally I don't let her out of my sight. Sorry mom with the four girls, I'm sure it was even more fun trying to get stuff onto the counter with five!

Anyway, Christmas was awesome. I put a lot of effort into prepping everything so that I could relax and enjoy our company more. I think that it worked out well. And we finally finished up the Christmas ham.

Merry Christmas!

So far Lily has resisted opening up every single present under the tree, while we wait for the rest of the family to get here.

Merry Christmas!

Hmmmm

It seems like Madilyn is trying to tell me something. I wonder what....

I am so done

If I never see another snowflake as along as I live, it will be too soon. Or however that goes. We've had a couple of sunny days but there is still so much snow. Apparently, Cville got hit with snow and the roads there are still difficult, if not impassable. Fluvanna's roads, Pedro reports, are pretty good. He went out with Lily today. Thank heavens. Too many loved ones in the same house for too long makes Sonia go crazy. :)

And it's not like it's bad to be with family but the feeling of being STUCK with them for an interminable time is well... hard. Like a whole lot of other people, I had some thing that I wanted to get done for Christmas. I will have to hope that I can get out to do them in a couple of days. I guess I could go to Richmond instead of Cville....

Well, I'm feeling kind of blah and lethargic. I stand at the doors and windows silently urging the sun on. I think it was in the low 40s today so some snow melted. I know I sound like an old cranky lady (shut up, Pedro) but I have things to do and I want the snow gone! There I said it! In other news, I did put some Christmas lights up on the back balcony and it's very pretty to look at lying in bed. :)

It's a Winter Wonderland! (for some of us)

Wow. I think I read that we're received 17 inches of snow. And it's still snowing! Not as hard but the storm warning goes until tomorrow morning. I read that more snow is in the forecast. wow. Lily had a 104.7 degree fever last night. I called the pediatrician on call. She called me back right away but I had to call her back so that she could help her husband dig out the car. Then she called me back from a hotel. The hotel was full. She and her family had to sleep in the lobby! And she was due the week before me, so I know she had a baby with her! They may have been some of the lucky ones because I read some people were stranded in their cars overnight. The National Guard has been called into work in one county and elsewhere volunteers with 4x4s have been recruited to rescue stranded travelers and take them to shelters. It's a mess, y'all.

I'm very glad that I made myself pick up a few extra things yesterday. Also? Lily has been doing #1 and #2 in the potty and now she's started emptying it into the toilet! Wow. :) I know. From record snowfall to potty training. Hey, it's all important to me!




And now, we dance!

Hellacious

I had quite the afternoon. I ran out of conditioner so I HAD to go into town to get some. Then, because we're expecting a foot of snow on Saturday, I went to Whole Foods for some essentials. The essentials turned out to be champagne and cupcakes. So be it. :) Anyway, I tried to beat the traffic but the drive home was atrocious. Poor Lily, hadn't been feeling well all day and after much groaning, barfed all over herself and partially on Madilyn. M has the best WTH? face EVER. Madilyn was also the best dressed out of the 3 of us as she was rocking her Ralph Lauren sweat suit. Thanks Aunt Maria!

Anyway, we made it home safely. Madilyn made it five hours without eating. She's my little trooper. She was making googly eyes at people in Whole Foods until she noticed how many people were looking at her. Then she started to cry. :)

Relic

Oh my goodness, I am wiped today! The girls, of course, are in full swing. Sigh. And yes, it looks like I have another princess on my hands. Not sure if I can handle that. :P Life is actually pretty good, I'm just not feeling all that well today (see my Facebook poem) I really wanted to get out of the house and get few things. Not least, a cupcake from the downtown mall. But as Lily and I annihilated a pack of bacon this morning, I think the cupcake will have to wait for tomorrow. Oh and they have such GOOD cupcakes..... *drool*

I had to take a personal moment there, thinking about the cupcakes. Thanks for putting the bold on, Madilyn. My favorite is the red velvet, Pedro likes the Lemondrop. Lily likes them all. :) Let's see.... Lily is pretty much potty trained. She does most of her business in there, aside from the occasional accident. She's also staying dry overnight so that's the bomb! Also, if anyone is looking for gift ideas for her, a new umbrella would be nice. I had to throw the other one out as it was full of pee. I don't know what happened, and I don't WANT to know.

Okay, M is fussing so I'd better make this quick. We went to see the Princess and the Frog and I loved it. :) Lily, not so much. M was watched by Stacy's mom Betty. Who said that M ate two (TWO!) jars of baby food while we were out. Madilyn much prefers solids to her bottle now. Anyhoo, then we went out to see a big Christmas light display. Lily was beside herself with glee. Sorry that the pictures are fuzzy, Lily would not stop moving. :)

I'm in Love!

I've been meaning to write about how potty training has been going well, and blah blah blah. I've had a lot of my mind. I've been in pretty good spirits lately. I'm finally looking at where I am in life and feeling pretty good about it. :)

Anyway, I have a ton of stuff to do today so that I can take Lily and Madilyn over to Stacy's house so that three of us can go and see the Princess and the Frog and then go and see Christmas lights. Pedro gets the night off. Does he know how lucky he is?

I have what you don't have!

A Christmas mermaid!

A day without rain

I swear it has been raining here so much lately. We moved here in 1999, when there was a mild drought going on. In 2002, the drought was so bad that one town ran out of water and public restrooms had the taps turned off. It was gruesome. But this fall I have seen so much rain. It's good, right? But I'm just not used to the soggy ground. I'm such a baby. I'm from Vancouver! I'm supposed to have webbed toes. :) Pedro and Lily wore themselves out decorating the tree.

I'm still woefully unprepared for Christmas but I did make a wickedly good chicken pot pie last night. I starved myself most of the day (sorry for whining, Stacy) and so I had the WW points for it. It was so good. I've almost lost 10 pounds and I'm so proud of myself. I have a long way to go but at least I'm getting there. :) I was writing a quick email the other day, and Madilyn rolled herself all the way under the Christmas tree. You can see her smiling in the picture. She was dazzled by the lights. Aren't we all. :)

Brains.....zzzzzzz

I am so tired today. Here's the deal: if I get Madilyn to bed at a decent hour, she tends to wake up at 5am to eat. SO, if she's inclined to be awake at a later hour, as she has been, I feed her at 11:30 and we go to bed and she sleeps through til 8 or 9am. Sweet, right? Well, yesterday I was growing tired of these late night shenanigans so I tried to get her to sleep earlier. And I did. She was in bed asleep by 10:30. Score! So who woke me up at 3:45am??? Granted she did have a poop, but after cleaning her up, I tried for an hour to get her back to sleep. I finally gave in and gave her a large bottle which she consumed rather quickly but then decided to serenade me for a while. I'm EXHAUSTED.

It's like, if I'm going to be sleep deprived, let me stay sleep deprived. Letting me get a few nights of good sleep then yanking the rug back out from under me, is extremely painful. In other news, M is loving her solids. I'm going to start making my own baby food soon. I like doing it because it saves money and I control what goes in there. There can mean the food or her stomach. :)

Yes, we have our Christmas tree decorated. It was a nice day. Granted, I was out battling idiotic Christmas shoppers to get my groceries but I (and they) survived. No, I'm still not ready for Christmas but then what is ready? We have our lovely tree, which we enjoy every day, and we have each other. Christmas cards may not make it out this year. I don't even have presents for the girls yet. (shhh don't tell!) I am looking forward to Christmas day with the family and hanging out. I think that's where my spirit is.

And is it just me, or does Madilyn have the most gorgeous blue eyes?

Well

I find myself with a little time on my hands. Not much, don't get too excited. Things are going well, I guess. I'm feeling totally overwhelmed about the idea of Christmas. I think I just need to make a list in order of importance and chip away at it. I'm looking forward to the rituals of it, this year. Roaring fires, hot chocolate, etc. All the things that I can start to share with my family. :) As emotionally unhealthy as my parents could be, we always had a good time at Christmas. Probably due to all the rumballs.

I'm still chugging away at my diet. I do well on Weight Watchers. I'm just a miserable cow. I hate veggies so my diet looks like: eat, starve for a few hours, eat, starve, eat and then go to bed hungry. But it works. :) Madilyn is a joy and Lily has been more and more fun to hang out with. Her big thing now is make believe. I have trouble keeping track of who I'm supposed to be.

And how gorgeous is she??? Lily is usually the photogenic one and Madilyn looks goofy. She might give Lily a run for her money. :)

Alive

No, I haven't given up on the baby blog. I've just been so busy and it's sure to increase the closer that we get to Christmas! Right now Madi is propped up in her crib, in vomit stained rompers, watching her "aquarium" so that I have time to write on here for a minute!

Thanksgiving was great and I really enjoyed the family dinner. :)

Okay, back to Madi.

OMG

So last night, before bed, Madilyn ate 11.5 oz of formula. I don't recall Lily ever eating that much. I'm kind of curious as to where it all went. I think we're clearly in growth spurt territory. M also isn't all that interested in her bottles anymore. She's eating whole jars of baby food. Frightening! In a good way, I suppose. She'll be eating less formula = less bottle washing. I typed "whishing" which is a pretty close assimilation of washing and whining which is what I usually do.

We made it to gymnastics class today. woohooo! It was really weird. Madilyn fell asleep so I put her in her stroller and went to spend more time with Lily. I sat on the floor and all of a sudden I was surrounded by children who wanted to say hi or try to jump on me. Maybe because I'm so tall? Please don't say that I resemble Barney. I'm quite sure my couperosity isn't THAT bad.

Life with Lily:

Me: Lily come here.
Lily: No. YOU come here.

Lily: Mama, come here.
Me: Not right now, I'm busy.
Lily: (one second later) I'm busy too!

Peaches

Here are some pics of Madilyn eating. She grabs a hold of the spoon and has such a strong grip that it takes two of my hands to pry off one of hers. She also ate so much pureed peaches tonight that she didn't have any room for formula. I'm glad because formula is frackin' expensive!

Gosh, just think by June of next year she'll be done with formula! Only 7 more months to go!!! I'm sure that I had other news but I'm too tired to remember. I just hope that I can get up and get us out the door to gymnastics. Only a few more classes left for the year. And yes, I'll be signing Lily up again for class in the new year. I also keep on forgetting to look up ballet classes for her.....

Although, moody princess classes would be better idea.

Sunday Blues

Madilyn just does not want to sleep at night. So we get up for a morning feed and then we sleep in until noon! Of course, this isn't going to work when Pedro goes back to work tomorrow.... In other news, I've been introducing solid foods to Madi. She was lukewarm on the whole thing until I gave her peaches yesterday. She could not eat her lunch fast enough! She had cereal and peaches this morning and almost ate the whole bowl full. I was shocked.

Harris Teeter has a special on right now: buy 1 get 1 free for baby food. You know that I put a hurtin' on that aisle. Anyway, Pedro is trying to kick me out of the study. We had a great visit at g-ma and g-pa's house last week. It was nice seeing Lee and Hailee (spelling?). H is a beautiful and wonderful young lady. :) Hey, she watched the baby a lot for me so I might be biased.

Claire is a veritable delight. :) Don't worry Todd and Nicole, she'll be sleeping through the night soon. :)

Busy

That seems to be my subject more and more often! Lily's been sick. Please don't ask me if it's the swine flu, because to be spiteful, I'll say yes. She's feeling better today, finally. Madilyn is congested so now I'm worried about her. I think I'm going to become a shut in. You might be asking yourself, isn't M a little young to be on a potty? Well, Lily is 3 and we had to coerce her to pee on the potty this morning. No potty = no Curious George. She can do it, she just doesn't want to. argh So anyway, I'm starting early with M.

Let's see... I'm working this Saturday. I had Hallowe'en off so that we could go trick or treating. So I feel like I've forgotten most of what I learned! I haven't had time to really review this week because of Lily and some other things. Sometimes life just gets BUSY. Today I made a lasagna. Well, it's actually in the fridge waiting to be cooked. M was asleep and I figured I would seize the moment. I am making it for a new mom. It meant so much to Pedro and I to receive a week's worth of hot dinners that we do it for other new moms when we can. Honestly, after get through a day of being sleep deprived and trying to keep up with a toddler and a new baby and the aches and pains and rips from labor, a hot meal feels like winning the lottery.

I guess I don't have any new pics of Lily this time. M has been so much fun lately. I mean she's always fun but now she tries to catch her daddy's mustache. :) She has great motor control in her hands so I'm expecting her to be picking up cheerios by Christmas and feeding herself. That's what Lily was doing. :) Uh oh! I hear a baby waking up....

Hallowe'en

I'm super tired so I'm not going to write too much. Madilyn is really trying to crawl and tries in the middle of the night. She's also doing 360 degree rolls in her crib and banging her head on the slats so I'm going to have to put the bumper in tonight.

Busy (again)

I'm not sure how people did it in the "olden" days. Granted they didn't have the internet, tv, or Farmtown. I spent two hours today cleaning my desk and I only got half of it done. I put things away and recycled what I didn't need, etc. Went through some books. It's amazing how much stuff we can acquire. I'm SO glad that Lily loves her sister. Can you imagine how much more hectic life would be for me if she didn't???

Since M isn't showing much interest in her bottle these days, I gave her some pear sauce for lunch. She did pretty well - she ate half the jar. Granted the jar is pretty teeny. :)



Here's Madilyn singing herself to sleep. I know, she's cuter than the freckles on a ladybug's nose.

Sorry, again

Well, I spent most of last week in a tizzy about work. So my house fell by the wayside. Now I'm trying to conquer mountains of laundry! I've also been trying to reorganize my house. Pedro and I are so tired of all the clutter. It's hard for me because I'm the custodian of my parents "stuff". Their photos and the things that they collected over the years. It's not a lot but combined with everything else.... There's nothing of theirs that I would get rid of.

Let's see, where to start? Lily and Madilyn both had appointments at the doctor's office today. Lily got her flu shot. I was wondering how she'd react to getting a shot now that she's more cognizant of things. She did okay. She cried a bit but I had a chocolate ready for her. :) I wanted her to go before the baby because I figured that watching M cry would stress Lily out more. M did great. And yes, that is how Lily hangs out.

Lily's height and weight are both in the 97th percentile: 39lbs, 11oz and 3ft 4 inches. phew Lily was drawing on my notepad with a pen and the doctor was amazed at her dexterity. I didn't tell her how M had stolen the same pen earlier. I didn't want to freak her out. :)

Madilyn is 12lbs 15oz, so just shy of 13 pounds. She's 2 feet! She's in the 25 percentile. It's so weird having one child who's so much larger than average, and the other one is so petite. Oh well. Anyway, they both look really good. The doctor got a treat. I always tickle Madilyn when I change her so I tickled for the dr. She thought it was hilarious. :) Hey, we're always a good time.

I always thought that I was the weird one

At least Madilyn is keeping it real. *





* Lily is keeping it real too - real weird.

OMG

I am totally getting a miniature donkey. I love how his name is Apache Brave, when he looks like it should be Fluffy Cottonball.