Singing Hosanna

Yesterday at church was the annual kids' palm processional for Palm Sunday. Nina was very excited, so we were too. This was her first year being old enough to participate. Here's what she was supposed to do...

Here's what she actually did...

We had to laugh because Nina loves any opportunity for jumping and shouting, but I guess everyone can get a bit overwhelmed by a bit of stage fright!

Easter Eggstravaganza 2010

Today was our community Easter Eggstravaganza. My parents and I took Nina, Lyla, Emme, and Ryleigh to the festivities. Things got started with an egg hunt for the bigger kids. The scene there was a little reminiscent of what the TV coverage of an aid truck bringing food to a starving country looks like. When the bunny said "Go" it was every man, woman, and child for himself. Since we managed to get our girls a few eggs and not get trampled, we called it a success. We thought the 0-3 age egg hunt would be much more calm.

Before we left to head over to the little kid egg hunt, Nina got to see the Easter Bunny. There were lots of kids taking turns getting their picture taken with the bunny, and Nina is probably going to be in about five other families' photos. She just stayed next to the Easter Bunny and smilied while the other parents were taking pictures of their kids with the bunny. My mom and I got a good laugh about that.
This is just one example...

Then it was on over to the little kids' egg hunt. We thought this was going to be much slower. I mean, there are hundreds of eggs just sitting out in the grass waiting to get picked up. Again, when the bunny said "Go" it was every man, woman, and tiny child for himself. I almost swatted a grown man with my camera bag when he snatched the egg from the ground where Lyla's outstretched hand was just about to pick it up. He then proceeded to run along the hill, collecting more eggs. I almost shouted, "Let your kid pick up the eggs, and stop taking them from two-year olds," but I refrained from making a scene and just gave him the stink eye instead. How mature of me!

Overall, I think the girls had a pretty good time, and you may or may not see us back at the Easter Eggstravaganza next year. Right now, I'll settle for a creative and fun egg hunt in Mousey and Poppy's big back yard on Easter afternoon!

Lubricated Lyla

It started out a great morning. Everyone was getting dressed and on-the-ball early this morning which was good because I had a lot to get done today. I started by getting Lyla dressed, then left her to play in her room while I went to Nina's room to get her dressed. Just a little background here - Lyla's room was (or at least I assumed) kid proof. We used to keep her lotions, ointment, etc, in the top drawer of her dresser, but when I noticed her bringing the stool from the bathroom into her room to stand on so she could access the non-kid proof drawer, I moved all the messy items out. However, I must have forgotten the Vaseline at the back of the drawer somewhere. I didn't see it, but clearly, it was in there.

Anyway, back to the story. I was in Nina's room getting her dressed, and we were debating the merits of black leggings with polka dots vs. black leggings with ruffels (for those of you who think that's crazy, welcome to the world of a nearly four-year old girl with strong opinions) when I thought I'd peek in on Lyla. This is what I found.

She had found the jar of Vaseline, opened it, and was smearing fistfulls of it all over her face and hair. When I saw her, I didn't know whether to laugh or shout, but I did know that I was going to need a picture of this. It would be too hard to describe otherwise.

After taking a few pictures and laughing about it, I put her in the bath thinking if I washed her hair a few times, the Vaseline would come out. I couldn't have been more wrong. I washed it twice, used conditioner and rinse, then washed it again, and none of the Vaseline came out. I tried combing it out of her hair after the bath, it just stood straight out to the sides.

We had already spent about an hour with the Vaseline incident, so I thought I'd let her hair dry, get in my workout, and see how it looked afterwards, figuring we'd just wash it again tonight. After two hours, the pictures below were still how she looked. It's almost as if her hair was soaking wet. But, it wasn't wet at all. It was just all the Vaseline still stuck in her hair.

My next course of action was a call out to moms I knew asking for advice on how to get Vaseline out of hair. My girlfriends and family came up with some great suggestions for me - a lot of which came from online forums. I guess I'm not the only parent that considered a buzz cut as the only option for getting the Vaseline out. There were suggestions from raw egg and peanut butter to corn starch and de-greaser. I decided to put a hat on Lyla and head to the store to pick up a few potential remedies, and we decided to start with the one that people mentioned as "working" after having tried all the other remedies. I would have never suspected it would work, but I put her back in the tub and rubbed baby oil into her hair. I did that several times with rinsing and washing with dish soap in between. Then, I completed the regimin with two shampoo washes (baby oil isn't the easiest to get out either), and I'd say we have success. Her hair still looks quite slick, and it will probably take a few more washes to get it back to normal, but at least it isn't sticky and coated with Vaseline.

Needless to say, nothing on my "list" got done today, but kudos to Nina who was a great big sister through it all and was very patient, and even helpful, while little sister required so much attention. Kudos also to my mom-helpers who gave me some great internet links, called their hair dressers, and checked in on us to see the progress. As my friend Sallie said, we took one for the team this time. So, now all my friends will know how to get Vaseline out of a kids' hair if they ever need it in the future. They also know where to come for a large supply of baby oil and dish soap!

Date Night

Yesterday evening was my turn to take Nina out on a date night. As soon as Mark got home from work, Nina and I left for Color Me Mine, our community paint-your-own pottery place. They had some great Princess and the Frog themed pottery pieces, so Nina decided on a frog prince piece that will make a great little jewelry/hair band holder. Here she is carefully painting the top. She did a great job and had a blast. We get to pick it up from getting fired next week. After Color Me Mine, we went out to dinner at Chick Fil-A. Talk about interesting dinner conversation, she turned to me and said, "So, when am I going to get a brother?" I didn't have much to say for that one!

A Fishing Outing with Nina (Guest Post by Mark)

Well I finally finished up preseason and came home to some nice weather. I had been talking up fishing at our local community pond with Nina and she took the bait and got excited. It was a little muddy so I dressed her in some knock-around clothes for the trip. I had a feeling it would be a good day. Realizing I only had about 45 minutes of attention span, it better have been. I tied on a lipless crankbait, a Strike King Sexy Shad no less, and started with my first cast. Traditionally the plan is to hook the fish and have Nina fight it all the way to the bank. Then she insists on holding it for a photo and then tosses it back into the water. We ended up catching a total of 6 and the bioggest was 3.2 lbs. And yes she held that one as well even though she needed both hands. Then I knew it was time to go home when Nina says, "Daddy, we need to go home now so I can change clothes and put my dress back on." Gotta love her.

**pictures taken with my phone camera

Give a Little Squeeze

I thought it was great that the Body Shop was having another campaign this year to combat child sex trafficking. As many of you may remember from a post last year, the Body Shop donated proceeds from it's Soft Hands, Kind Hearts lotion to the Somaly Mam Foundation and ECPAT-USA, and they're at it again with the LemonAid campaign. So, go ahead and give a little squeeze!

Daddy's Home - Yea!

Another year - another preseason over and done with. By far, this preseason was much better than the previous two years. Two years ago was very hard because Mark left the day after I got home from the hospital with Lyla, and last year was a real challenge with a 1 and 3 year old, and we all got the stomach flu while Mark was gone. So, this year we did have the challenge of the massive snow storms to contend with, but other than that, there was nothing out of the ordinary going on. The girls and I were happy to see Mark when he got home yesterday, and we're glad that most of the travel left will be short trips for away games. Our "special" child, Lyla. This is her typical look around the house these days...messy face, messy hair, and her helmet on backwards.

That's My Man

Check out the pose from Nina! I would be worried if it were anyone other than Jonathan, but they are great friends, and he is such a sweet boy, so it's really just a cute display of being buddies. However, Mark and I love his parents, so we're only partly kidding when we talk about considering an arranged marriage. :) Lyla loves these things!

Charleston

I arrived back home today from a great little get away to Charleston. After a bit of airplane drama that delayed me a couple hours while trying to get there, I arrived Saturday to spend a couple days with Mark and enjoy the awesome city of Charleston. DC United had a game Saturday evening, so I got to see that, and I easily entertained myself while Mark was at the team training session on Sunday morning. Then he had the rest of the day on Sunday and all of Monday off, so we were free to do whatever we wanted. On Sunday afternoon, we headed downtown for some shopping and then made our way over to the Battery (which is the historic part of the city) for walking around and picture taking, followed by a seafood dinner downtown.

The Battery had some neat sights to see...

Thank goodness for a Blackberry to occupy some time while your wife is walking around taking pictures... On Monday morning, we headed out early for a round of golf. Mark played, and I walked/rode along.

After golf, lunch, a little more shopping, a workout, and a shower, we headed down to Folly Beach for the rest of the day to take in a bit of the beach scene and have dinner.

It wasn't getting ready to storm, but the sky and sand looked pretty cool with those clouds.

Fortunately, my flight back home today was very uneventful, and I arrived home relaxed and rejuvinated from my little time away. I was excited to see the girls, and it seems I missed all the rain here over the weekend because today was gorgeous.

I do have to plug one amazing article I read in the airport today. I normally don't get a lot of free time to read at home, so I brought my National Geographic magazines with me on the trip. Anyway, there was a fascinating article about Wolves. I found it online also, so if you've got a few minutes, it's a great feature article. The link on the left entitled Before and After Wolves is also a must-see after reading the article.

Leaving On a Jet Plane

Actually, it was more like leaving on a puddle jumper with maintenance issues... Anyway, I'm in Charleston, SC visiting Mark for a few days. My parents gave me the gift of time away for my birthday, so I'll be here until Tuesday, and they're back home with our girls. I'll catch up with posting when I get back.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Lyla!

The birthday girl accessorised her own outfit today which included her sister's shoes, a necklace for a headband, a pink tutu, a necklace, and her backpack. For an after-lunch treat, I took the girls over to Edibles Incredible to pick out a special birthday cupcake. Lyla picked a cupcake with rainbow sprinkles, and Nina picked an Oreo cupcake. Nina and I sang Happy Birthday to Lyla and then Nina helped her blow out the candles.

For dinner we went to Chuck E. Cheese which was a lot of fun for the girls. They rode rides, played games, ate pizza, and danced on the stage with the mouse. We "partied" late at Chuck E. Cheese, so Lyla got to stay up well past her bed time, and all three of us came home pretty wiped out. We missed having Mark be a part of the celebration, but I think today ended up being a fun day for the girls.

This is a collage I made of some of my favorite pictures of Lyla's past year. You can click on the collage to see it larger.

Finaly, I had to include this video. I was around the corner from the girls when I heard Nina singing the Itsy Bitsy Spider. I peeked around to catch her doing the motions on Lyla. I got the camera in time to get part of the second round of Itsy Bitsy Spider.

2 and 25

Happy Birthday, Bo and Lyla. These two share quite a few similarities: both are leftys (Bo is actually more ambidextrous), both were born on 3/8, both are the youngest in the family, both have laid-back personalities, and both are very sweet. Both were, how shall we say, surprise additions to the family, and both mothers experienced both a bit of shock and fear at the realization they'd have another one joining the family at that time, but I know we can all safely say that we wouldn't trade them for the world, we are so thankful for them, and we love them very much. Happy Birthday, Bo and Lyla! Yesterday was a great day for us for visiting with some of our favorite people. The girls and I had the awesome pleasure of hanging out with my BFF P last night for a fun sleep over, then P picked up Jeff in the morning from a friends' house, and we all got to hang out and have brunch at our house with other friends, Teresa and Caz and their boys. After that, Lyla got in a nap and we headed out to Mousey and Poppy's for an awesome dinner to celebrate Uncle Bo's birthday.

Since we already celebrated Lyla's birhtday with a party, I'm going to do a few fun things with the girls today to celebrate her actual b-day. I'll update the blog with those pictures later tonight.

Catching Up

We all enjoyed a week together as a family before it was time for Mark to head back out on his next trip. He hung up the new trapeze/swing in the basement for the girls, and they have loved playing on it. They sit on it like Nina is doing here so it acts as a swing, or they hang from the bottom rung and swing out on it like a trapeze. Definitely a fun new addition.

Lyla also enjoyed her reading time with Mark before he leaves for work in the morning.