NO DIET COKE = GRUMPY

When Amanda is Grumpy with me I break into a song, "The devil wants everybody GRUMPY, the devil wants everybody sad. The devil wants everybody GRUMPY, GRUMPY, GRUMPY, and he doesn't want anybody glad. But Jesus wants everybody HAPPY, Jesus wants everybody glad. Jesus wants everybody Happy, Happy, Happy, and he doesn't want anybody sad."

She usually stops being GRUMPY the minute I start singing because she wants me to stop since she doesn't appreciate my WONDERFUL singing voice! LOL!
But the other day, I had to sing my song to myself because I WAS GRUMPY!

The reason for my case of the GRUMPIES? We were out of DIET COKE! This is not a good thing if you know me, and a rare thing in our home, you know that I HAVE TO HAVE my caffeine in the form of Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi. ( I tried to quit, switched to tea, I cut back for a while when preggo, but my addiction returned once I had Amelia and didn't get as much sleep)

I don't drink as much as I once did even though hubby doesn't believe that when he goes for a Diet Coke and sees the box is empty after he just bought the 12 pack the day before! I really have cut back at least most days!

When I realized we didn't have soda my daughter was sick so we couldn't make a soda run so.....I suffered through the day with my head exploding thinking I would stop at the store on the way home from class that night only that didn't work out since my girl was so sick.

The next day, I made it til mid morning and told Amanda that I was GRUMPY because I needed soda so I packed my girls in the car and since they were sick I went through a drive through to get a LARGE Diet Coke. I drove away feeling like I had won the lottery and really did win when hubby brought some home that night after work.

Once my girls were healthy we did go to the store and we stocked up on DIET COKE AND DIET PEPSI. One day this week I told Amanda I was a little Grumpy ( she got sick again but I didn't want to tell her that is why I was GRUMPY)
and she replied, "But why ? We have tons of soda!"

I'M STUCK AND I CAN'T GET OUT

I think Amelia is starting to regret learning to crawl already. She's really into exploring lately and since we have gates we let her. As a mom I have learned that every trip to the bathroom, to take a shower, to wash my hair, etc has to be planned and Amelia needs to be in a safe place or napping when I do any of the above.

I had to go to the bathroom so I locked Amanda and Amelia in the family room with both gates locked. I asked Amanda to "BABYSIT" which she loves because it makes her feel so grown up and she can do it well for a couple of minutes. She is really good at making sure her little sis doesn't put things in her mouth and loves to entertain her.


I was headed downstairs when I hear this panicked little voice yelling, "MOM, Amelia's crawled behind the TV and she's crying and I can't get her out!"


I raced down the steps and sure enough little Amelia had crawled behind the TV stand and has yet to learn how to crawl backwards and couldn't crawl forwards because she was stuck in all of the cords from the TV.
I couldn't reach her either so I attempted to move the stand and TV but it was way too heavy for me. The poor girl is crying and Amanda and I were both on the verge of full blown panic attacks because we couldn't get her out for what seemed to an eternity when it was probably more like five minutes. I was finally able to reach under one arm and pulled her up a little so I could grab her with both hands.


Who would have thought that crawling could be so dangerous? I am sure Amelia had no idea or she would have just continued her sweet little rolling everywhere. We now have a barricade on both sides of the TV stand.

Life is never dull at our home, even for a moment!

Oh those telemarketers

Today the phone rang and I ran to the kitchen to see if it was someone I wanted to talk to. I saw it was just a telemarketer so I told Amanda it was just a telemarketer. Amanda got mad and said, "Oh those telemarketers, why do they keep calling us we do not want their junk, it will only clutter our home!"

I will admit she has watched a couple of episodes of Clean House with me lately and she is fascinated with the show. She can't believe the homes and told me, " I love to watch the yard sales and see the new rooms."
I do think it is making an impact on her though because before she watched the show I asked her if I could throw this weird looking toy man from some movie she got in a Happy Meal out. She told me she wanted to keep it. BUT..........after watching the show I asked her a week later and she said, "Throw it away, that is the stuff that clutters your house!"

When I asked her if we should call Clean House to come and clean our home she said, "Yes, well no, they might make me sell my dollhouse!"

That Pollen

The other day we were coming home from the doctor's and I was pointing out to Amanda all the pollen on the cars and how it makes us sick with allergies etc.....she looked at it and said, "WOW, it's just like Pixie Dust!

It is so neat to me that a child can see pollen has something pretty and magical like pixie dust. Where as an adult I very often find myself thinking about annoying the pollen is and all the allergy medicine it brings, and to those I know that suffer greatly because of it. When I should just think of it as something that comes with the beautiful Spring flowers God has made for us to enjoy. I don't think I will ever look at pollen the same now, it's just Pixie Dust!

My Shopping Girl!

Amanda is growing too fast for me to keep up with her little feet. So, I went to the only place I know that still has one of those shoe measuring things and measured her feet and once again the poor girl's feet were a size bigger than her shoes. I still can't get over how fast a child's foot can grow.

Amanda is at that age where she has a very strong preference for what she wears and wants to pick out her own outfits. We have organized her dresser so she knows what is in what drawer and she can usually go into her room and come out in a matching outfit. It might not be what I would have chosen but since I love the way she shows so much independence and initiative in the morning by getting dressed on her own, many times without being told to do so, I figure it is best to just let her be creative because she will just veto what I choose just to make sure she is the one choosing anyhow.

She hasn't figured out yet that I still control what is put into the drawers! I just love how she just gets dressed, brushes her teeth, puts on her lipstick, (Chapstick) and brushes her hair then finds me to show me what she has done. She is very proud of her "lipstick" and proud of getting ready all on her own. She just beams with excitement and we no longer have huge battles fighting over what she is wearing since I have wised up and let go.

Giggle Girls!

I am so thankful my girls love to giggle!

The "PERFECT" Easter 2010

I was driving to the store yesterday and was feeling a wee bit grumpy because Easter hadn't gone the way we had planned.



We had started planning the "perfect Easter" Amelia's first, weeks ago starting with finding matching

Easter dresses for the girls. I bought things for their Easter baskets, and planning an Easter dinner..........

But then on Wednesday Amanda got sick....on Thursday she got worse.....but on Friday it appeared she was on the mend and that we would most likely have to miss the egg hunt we had planned to go to on Saturday, but we might actually make Easter services on Sunday since if she stayed healthy it would be a full 48 hours.....until she got sick again early Saturday morning and decided to share the virus with little Amelia.

As I drove to the store, the thought of missing church on my second favorite Sunday of the year, and all the family traditions, and it being Amelia's first Easter so I wanted it to be the "perfect EASTER"really bummed me out.



When I thought to myself, there is no way you can recreate the perfect Easter because it already happened when Jesus went to the cross for your sins girlfriend! It isn't about the Easter dress, or hat, egg hunt, meal, or even the church service (although, all of them are nice) BUT it is about the EASTER HEART.

Once I had that little reminder I perked right up and decided this couldn't be the "PERFECT" Easter since that happened a little less than 2,000 years ago, but it could be a "SPECIAL EASTER" with my girls and hubby and believe me, it was one of my favorite Easter celebrations all because "Jesus is the real Easter story not the pretend one."

Is there a doctor in the house because we sure need one today!
With both girls sick with a nasty virus we had to adjust our Easter plans and stay inside and make the best of the holiday. We started with a yummy daddy-made breakfast of cheese and egg omelets, sausage, and hash browns. Good job daddy!

Next we moved into the living room to see what the Easter mommy and daddy bought.

Hubby and I decided to have the Easter mommy and daddy visit our girls instead of the Easter bunny. We wondered if we were depriving our kids out of the "FUN" of the holidays by not lying to them and telling them Santa brings presents and an Easter bunny comes and brings you treats. So we didn't make a big deal about Santa or the bunny and just focused on the true meaning of both holidays since they are both the reasons we live our lives with such joy! We felt if we told Amanda these lies that she would eventually wonder if the stories we told her about Jesus were false also.

Someone even questioned us once about not doing Santa but our daughter has taught us that our decision really was the best one for our family, because we never had to tell her there wasn't a Santa or an Easter bunny because she told us over a year ago that they were not real. It shocks me what kids pick up on and I am glad we can be open and honest about the little things now, since she will need to know she can trust what we say when she grows up and deals with more difficult issues and needs us to be honest and able to trust us.

Today she told us that "Peter Cottontail is the pretend part of Easter and Jesus is the real part" To this we can only say, "Thank you God, she gets it!"

I don't know if we could say that at this point in her life had we opted to buy into the "gotta do Santa and the Easter bunny or your ruining the holidays for your girls lie"

Our pastor preached a sermon once and said that there are no such things as white lies to your children or anyone for that matter.

Amelia opened her card from us today and thought, "hey where is the money?" She had money fall out of the card she received yesterday from mammaw and pappaw.

Amanda had a Tiana doll in her basket, since we didn't put a lot of candy in there this year she got a toy instead.


Amanda also got some special princess flossers which she loved! We like using them over dental floss since it is something she can do and actually enjoys doing.

Amelia just looked at us like, "dental flossers in an Easter basket?"

"Come on people!" (but I deleted that pic by mistake)

The girls got one toy, and Amanda got some candy, and Amelia got none....but she did get her very OWN book. They also received three books to share for the family library.

Amelia and Amanda both love to be read to and Amelia is really into all the touch and feel books we have right now. I don't remember Amanda being as into them at this age but maybe I have forgotten.....

I will say for a sick girl having to run to the bathroom every few minutes, miss out on a lot of fun plans we had made including an egg hunt, and our Easter traditions.....she sure did have a great attitude all day. She went with the flow and didn't dwell on what she had missed but kept that smile even when her tummy hurt.

Amanda was thrilled that her doll actually turns into a frog, two toys in one. Why can't they make all toys this way?

If given a choice to play with plastic or paper Amelia would choose both. The picture proves she loves to play with plastic and her diaper today proved she loves to eat paper!

After the girls opened their baskets we dyed eggs with Amanda while Amelia took a nap.

We let Amelia chew on a carrot and she loved it.

Since we made a resolution to have a healthier lifestyle in the New Year and not have a lot of unnecessary sugar in our home.....we decided not to make our traditional bunny cake and make a veggie and dip bunny.














Hubby and I made this together while Amelia napped and Amanda played. I was quite impressed that hubby and I made something IN THE KITCHEN TOGETHER that turned out this nice because that is the ONE PLACE that we do not work well together. Let's face it there is the right way of doing things and then there is the man's way of doing things. ha ha I am just kidding about that since 99.9 percent of the time his way usually works best, but let's not run and tell him that OK? It can be our secret!

Peter Rabbit may have gotten away from Mr. MacGregor and out of his garden but he didn't stay our of ours!

Amelia was not happy with Peter Rabbit for disobeying his mommy so she gave him a talking to!

She told him she still loved him but was disappointed that he disobeyed.

After our lunch of bunny veggies and mini hot dogs we made little peeps cupcakes. ( You didn't really think I would keep the sugar out of Easter did you? Everything in moderation.)

We tried a new recipe to make marshmallow icing using something called Marshmallow Fluff. I had never purchased that before and let me tell ya it took me FOREVER to find in the grocery store. It wasn't anywhere I thought it would be........it was in the peanut butter and jelly aisle!
(I should have known, my roommate would eat the fluff on peanut butter, banana, and mayo sandwiches in college and no, I never took a bite.) Gross!

Looking at Amanda's cupcakes made me think, "It is the process not the product."

Oh the product is looking better!

The final products looking good but as you can see Amelia is not letting Peter Rabbit off the hook very easily.

After making cupcakes we had a surprise egg hunt in the basement since we missed out on a couple of hunts yesterday and our annual mammaw and pappaw hunt this year.

Amelia's first egg hunt. She found four eggs with daddy's help!

Found another egg!

Amelia's wondering, "is that bunny real?"

Guess who found the most eggs?

Amelia?

Nope, that would be Amanda. Since her sister didn't care and they were both sick we will cut her some slack this year but next year she is going to have to share some more eggs with her little sis!

We finished our day with carry out from one of our favorite restaurant, a movie, and finished decorating the eggs we dyed earlier in the day.

My favorite part of the day was reading the Easter Story to the girls, that would be the "real story of Easter, not the pretend one!"




Sometimes the holidays we don't spend planning away are the ones we enjoy the most! We had a wonderful family day together and made lots of wonderful memories!

March came in with a 6 month old

and CRAWLED out with a 7 month old.

Amelia's news update!

This has been a big week for our little Amelia. On Good Friday, Amelia became a crawler. She started crawling using both legs instead of just the one so now she goes everywhere and gets into everything she can and puts in right into her mouth.

The other day Amanda yelled, "Mom, Amelia's eating tissues." I looked over and somehow she had gotten a whole box of tissues and was chowing down, she likes paper too. I guess it must tastes better than the baby food to her.

In other news, Amelia's front tooth broke through so now she has three teeth. It is so exciting that all of her teeth just appear after a whole lot of chewing on anything she can get her hands on without lots of fussing. Although if I remember correctly from Amanda, the fussing will come a little later when the big molars come on in. We are in no rush for that!

The LONGEST day of the year

After a long day with both girls getting up unusually early for them (5:30 am) because Amanda was up sick, I just wanted an ice cold glass of water. I pushed the button for ice and nothing! ( FYI) Whenever shopping for a new fridge, RUN from the GE Profile if you like your drinks with ice in them and if you want the ice to go INTO the cup not ONTO the floor.

I opened the freezer to investigate the no ice problem and found big chunks frozen together so I reached to get them out, and when I did a whole lotta ice fell out along with some frozen food. I wasn't feeling the need to clean up one more mess and I looked at the clock and saw that daddy would be home soon. I said to Amanda, "Oh, I just wish daddy was home already!"

Amanda replied, "Well, you can't always have what you want! I think either you or daddy told me that once, I can't remember who!"

It was me, so I guess my own words are coming back to haunt me! Yikes!