An Early Birthday Party

Tonight we had an early birthday celebration for Lyla. She turns two in a week, but since Mark just got home and leaves again before next weekend, we decided to celebrate early so he could be there. Lyla doesn't like crowds, so we did what we thought she would like best - a family party with Mousey and Poppy, Uncle Bo, Uncle Mike, and the Williams crew. Lyla loves bears, so it was a bear themed party. She had a great time until the very end when everyone was leaving then she had a massive meltdown. However, we had a great night celebrating our little Lyla. It's hard to believe she's already almost two!

An Inspiring Story

If you're looking for a uplifting quick read, this story about hope and healing in the form of a young mother's group is really inspiring. Even though their children were a product of abuse, these young moms have found ways to see the good and the positive in their situation. I admire that...

Cool Kids

Nina and Lyla were ready to talk to Mark on the webcam just after waking up. They decided to wear their sunglasses and give Daddy a laugh when he signed on and saw them.

One Creepy Snowman

Just insert the "EEE EEE EEE" sound of the Psycho shower scene, and you've got a certifiably creepy snowman. I am going to dream about this thing with a knife in it's falling off hands, creeping into my room at night. Thanks to Nina, this now resides in our house. Let me take you back to how it started...at Christmas, my mom had the "great" idea of setting up all of my sister and I's old stuffed animals, and letting our girls fill a bag of the ones they wanted to take home. I have no idea why, but Nina wanted to bring this home. He creeped me out, so I sneakily took it out of her bag and buckled it into the passenger seat of my mom's car, so she'd have a lovely passenger on her next outing. Since it creeps her out also, she found a way to sneak it back to me. I found another way to sneak it back to her - you get the picture - until, finally, she was having too many bizzarre dreams with the snoman in the house, so she set him out in the garage. Fast forward to last night when the girls and I went to visit my parents, and as Poppy is carrying Nina out to the car for us to leave, Nina sees the snowman and aks Poppy to get it for her - OF COURSE he is all too happy to send her home with it. She actually slept with it last night. As for the fate of the snowman, I'm just waiting for Mark to get home. He has vowed to strap it to an M80 if it comes back to our house. See Ya Frosty!!!

A Crazy Morning

There are a handfull of things I secretly swore to myself that I would never do if I had kids. I would never wear jumpers, I wouldn't wear holiday sweaters or earrings, I wouldn't drive a mini-van (sorry to all my cool mini-van driving friends - you are fantastic in your vans, but I couldn't pull it off), and I wouldn't succomb to listening to kids' music. There is one of those that I've caved on. The girls love kids' music, so we split the air time with kids' music played for part of the day and my music played for the other part of the day. Today we decided to meet up with one of Nina's buddies at Jammin' Java for a Rocknocerous show. Nina was given one of their CDs and loves it. We ended up having a great time at the show, but to hear about our crazy trip there, read the story below the pictures.

On our way to Jammin' Java, the girls were eating a snack in the car while I was trying to navigate us through some traffic, when Lyla started coughing really hard. I think she had a goldfish that had gone down the wrong pipe or something. Anyway, she was coughing really hard and all of a sudden threw up all over everything (which happened to her one other time with a big coughing spell). She had thrown up all in her shirt, her coat, the car seat, her pants, etc. It was awful. She was covered in throw up and the car smelled awful. I'm trying to find a place to pull over, but it's freezing outside, and we're on the toll road in traffic with no good place to stop off, so Lyla just had to hang tight. Once we got off the toll road, I looked for the nearest place to stop. We found a shopping center with a Marshalls in it, so I peeled all of Lyla's wet and smelly clothes off her, wiped her and the car seat down with baby wipes as best I could, and since I don't think ahead to pack back-up outfits, I put her in Nina's jacket with just her diaper and shoes on, and we ran into Marshalls to try to find an outfit. We found an outfit, and I was dressing Lyla in the check-out line while the cashier was scanning the tags then cutting them off to hand to me to dress Lyla. We left with Lyla dressed in a new outfit, a plastic bag to contain all the gross clothes, and we made it on time to Rocknocerous just before the first song started. Once we made it back home, there was a very extensive clean-up effort directed at the car seat, clothes, etc., but at least we made it to the show because the girls really had a good time!

What's Wrong With This Picture?

I was in the middle of getting Lyla dressed (which meant that basically I had her diaper and her pants on) when Nina needed immediate help with something. I left Lyla to help Nina, and returned to find her downstairs like this. She decided to take off her diaper and pants and get her pacifier out of her crib (which she is only allowed to have while sleeping) and do some work on a puzzle. Makes total sense I guess.

Passing the Time

So, with most of the snow hopefully behind us (I say most because we are forecasted to get another couple inches tomorrow or Monday), we are finally shovelled out of our house again and rejoining the world of interacting with people. Trust me, even running errands yesterday in the crowded stores was an exciting change of pace. However, while we were house-bound again we baked cookies together... made some Valentines...and then went over to Mousey and Poppy's house today for the cousin Valentine party. As usual, they had a great time together.Here is Nina singing Jingle Bells. She decided on her own outfit and made her microphone, and when she doesn't know the words to the song, she just pretends to be singing. I don't think there is any recording artist in her future, but she enjoys giving a performance. Pardon my video camera issue. I was holding the camera vertically not realizing that the video would still be displayed horizontally.

There's a Big Lizard Out There

Is anyone else getting tired of seeing snow pictures? I am. Maybe if I stop taking snow pictures, the snow will go away. Anyway, I thought I'd post a funny quote instead. Nina was on the phone with Mark this morning (who is now in FL), and he was asking her about all the new snow we've gotten since yesterday. She said, "Daddy, we can't go outside because there's a big lizard out there." After she got off the phone I made sure she understood that it was a big blizzard and not a big lizard that was keeping us inside. Funny though.

40 Days Till Spring

Thankfully it's stopped snowing...for now. Only 40 days till spring. What are the chances all this melts before then? It's hard to believe that another big snow storm is forecasted to hit tomorrow. I'm ready to start the "no more snow" chant to make it stop. During this past storm, Mark tried to stay on top of the shovelling as the snow was falling. Eventually, the snow just took over, and the hours of digging and shovelling continued. We didn't get outside to play on Saturday. There was just too much snow falling. So, the girls spent the day inside playing, running around, and bouncing on the little trampoline.

When Sunday came around, everyone started to make tracks in the sidewalks and finish clearing out what they could of the driveways. There is just so much snow that there is no where to put it all. Thankfully, today front end loaders came in with dump trucks to load some of the snow up that was piled on the road and drive it off somewhere so they could clear more than one lane on the road.

Nina and Lyla had fun playing in the snow yesterday. It was all shovelling business for Mark yesterday, so no fun snow hill in the back yard or trips to the sledding hill (like last time), Nina especially just loves climbing the huge mounds of snow. She stayed out for a long time just climbing and tunnelling around in the snow.

After they were tired of the snow, it was time to play princess again. And if you're wondering if Nina is actually glowing, yes, her face is covered with Aquaphor. The cold and snow really does a number on her cheeks, so they are very red and shiny.

I had to include these pictures of Princess Lyla because they were so cute. She really wanted her picture taken like Nina. Here's her best attempt at a big smile.

When she does try to smile normally for the camera, she most often has this off-set smile which is very cute also.

As of Early This Afternoon...

And it's STILL snowing! While I am not happy to be in another massive winter snow storm, here are a couple things I am happy about: Mark hasn't left for preseason yet, we haven't lost power at our house yet, when I went to the store yesterday they actually still had food on the shelves, and so far no one is getting easily irritated with being house bound yet.

Jump Jump!

Since we have a record snow storm predicted to hit again today, I took the girls yesterday to Sport Bounce to jump, slide, and bounce their hearts out since we'll probably be house-bound for the next couple days. They had a blast! Before they left, they were dressed up as Cinderella's step sisters. Nina does the full role play scenario from the Cinderella story and basically just tells Lyla where and when to fun and follow her. However, she plays along because she loves being included in big girl stuff!

Snow Shmo

The snow definitely is pretty when it's falling, but I have to admit I'm a little sick of seeing it fall at the moment. We've gotten more snow than I can remember us having in a couple years. I used to love it when it would snow (back in the day when Mark and I had the freedom to hit the slopes), but if I can't get out and enjoy the snow for sport, I'm ready for spring not long after winter has begun. I was hoping that Punxsutawney Phil would come out of his hole today and say that spring was on its way, but it looks like we won't be getting any help from the groundhog.

In this picture, Lyla was doing some watercolor "painting" and decided to paint herself a one-sided mustache instead.