Why, God, Why

I know I am a couple weeks behind in posting pics but I had to get this conversation out there.  Today on the way to school, Audrey and I were discussing that it was Wednesday when she fell silent.  A few minutes later she asked, "Why did God make me allergic to peanuts?  Why did He do this to me?"  My heart broke, especially over the second question.  I know that at some point in her short life I must have told her that she was allergic to peanuts because God made her that way but it hasn't been recently.  I have no idea what made her think about that this morning but I just reponded that God made her special.  She then asked if her friend Parker at school was special too.  After I said yes, the whole thing was dropped.  Audrey claims that peanuts are yucky but I'm starting to think that deep down, she realizes that something's different about her.  I'm going to keep an eye on this one to make sure it doesn't turn into something she's sad over.  On a side note, she's now telling fart jokes so she must not be that broken up about it.

It's Friday

I'm thrilled that it's Friday and that we're heading into a long weekend.  It's even better because Bill is off!  We're going to head down to Columbus for the day tomorrow to hang out with some good friends and then on Sunday, we're heading to a birthday party at a place that is filled with bounce houses, mazes, slides and games.  Audrey's been there a few times before and I'm always afraid she's going to get crushed by other kids because she's so small!  It's with a lot of the kids from our street so I think she'll have fun.  On Monday, I'm surprising Audrey with a daughter/mommy date to Disney on Ice!!  I won tickets through her soccer class.  Daycare is still open so I'm going to drop off Vivian before taking Audrey for pancakes and the show.  It's all about princesses so I'm going to have her dress up as one!  I'll be sure to take lots of pics.

Some good news is that we're all healthy!  Vivian went back to daycare on Tuesday and Audrey's slight fever never turned into anything.  We still need to have Viv's ears rechecked so we're not out of the woods yet but she's been super smiley lately so I'm hopeful.  Other Viv news is that she's clapping now and on the verge of getting onto her knees.  She'll stretch for items out of her reach but still isn't willing to push too far out of her comfort zone for fear of a faceplant.  Audrey was crawling right before 8 months and while I don't think Viv's there yet, I don't think it's too far away.  GULP!

Monsters!

After much discussion, we decided to move forward with our plans today to take Audrey to see Monsters, Inc. in 3D.  Vivian still has a fever and pretty much slept all day long.  Her babysitter is her teacher from school who knew Viv was sick and still agreed to watch her.  Love her!  We were also risking it a little because Bill is on call this weekend which means he could get paged at any moment to have to go into the hospital.  As it was, we were supposed to leave the house at 1:45 to get to the movies on time, and he was pulling up the drive at 10 till after being at the hospital all day.  We ended up only being a few minutes late and didn't miss any of the movie.

This was Audrey's first 3D movie and she did great!  I talked up the "special sunglasses" we had to wear and told her if she took them off, she wouldn't be able to see the show.  She never took them off once until the credits started to roll. 

Bill surprised her with popcorn and her own slurpee!  I'm not sure how much she drank but I know a ton of it ended up down the front of her - she tipped the cup while she was drinking out of the straw.

Pixar did a great job with the 3D animation - it wasn't the 3D that jumps out at you, rather it just added the dimension on the screen. It looked very cool.  (Audrey said that her turtle even liked the show.)  The best part was that even though Bill got called into the hospital right after we got home, he made it almost all the way through the movie before getting one quick page.

So when I put Audrey to bed tonight I thought she felt a little warm.  Her temp is 100.2.....crossing my fingers it doesn't turn into anything!!!

Our Little One

We have a very sick little girl in the house tonight.  First, I should back up to the weekend before Christmas.  Vivian had been coughing and just not acting right.  I had a feeling she had an ear infection and wanted to take her in to the doctor on that Saturday morning.  (I love that our pediatrician has both Saturday and Sunday hours!)  We ultimately decided not to take her in and went about our day.  Bad idea.  That evening, she developed a fever and our only option at that point was the ER where sure enough, they diagnosed an ear infection.  Next time, I'm trusting my intuition.

Even though her cough stuck around, we thought she was doing okay.  But then her coughing and phlegm (nice, huh?) started to ramp up again this week and yesterday when I picked her up from daycare, she was burning up with a fever.  They said she was not herself all day.  We could hear that she was getting rattly and wheezy in the chest too.  I took her in to the doctor this morning and got the dreaded news that she has RSV.  She also has bad ear infections in BOTH ears.  The one in the right ear is so bad that the nurse practioner barely had the scope in Viv's ear before saying, "Wow, that's really bad."  Always makes a mom feel good when she hears that about her baby.  :(  She also told me that we're probably one infection away from being referred to an ENT for possible tubes.  More great news.

So, the poor little thing is now doing Albuterol nebulizer treatments (gee, who does that sound like??) and is on a stronger course of antibiotics.  We have a recheck on Monday for the RSV and a recheck in 2 weeks for the ears.  I can't lie though, she was super sleepy all day and it was so nice just to hold and cuddle her.  I just wish she weren't so sick.

Found Photos

I was looking for pictures on Bill's phone that he took when Audrey and I were out playing in the snow and stumbled upon a lot more.  He was holding out on me so I'm posting them now.

Here's a tree that fell in our backyard this summer.  It was the second big branch to fall within a 3 week span.  In the second picture, Audrey is helping to take it to the curb.

Audrey holding hands with her friend Eli.

Bill's handiwork:

At the apple orchard:

Do you see me?:

How we roll at the grocery store!

 

It will be nice when Spring comes and she can ride this outside!

 

Happy New Year 2013

Happy New Year a few days late!! After the week and a half break we had, it was hard to get back in the swing of things on Wednesday. We were so spoiled with Bill either being off or only working half days that I did not want to go back to work and take the girls to school. I loved my little break from reality. It was during this downtime that I was able to think about what I wanted to accomplish in 2013. I'm not much of a resolution person but I actually came up with a good handful of goals.

This first one is kind of silly but I want to work on my handwriting. I don't write in cursive - very few people my age do anymore - and over the years, my handwriting has just gotten sloppy. And when I do write in cursive, it's terrible. I really want to make the effort to write nicely again.

I want to save money on food. Being foodies, we spend a ridiculous amount of money each month on food. We don't even shop at Whole Foods or anywhere crazy. It doesn't help that our weekly grocery bill doubled when we moved to Cleveland due to higher prices but I still think the amount we spend is way too much. My goal for the month of January is to see if we can get by on $50 of groceries a week like we used to in Iowa. Even if we go over $50 a week by a little bit, we'll be doing better than the $100+ we currently spend. This has already proved difficult as I spent $57 in week 1 and that was only to cover 4 dinners plus a few stock up items. As for eating out, I'm capping it at $150 on the month. I won't even tell you what we usually spend. This sadly means no date nights because one date would use this all up. Hey, don't judge, remember we like to eat. Good dinners out are what we do. I'll let you know at the end of the month how we fared.

I want to try all of the million recipes I've saved. We have a few tried and true cookbooks that we use but we also have binders full of cut out and handed down recipes.

My goal is to try them all and get rid of the ones we don't like. No point in saving them if we're never going to try them.

I want to finish making our house a home.  I really caught the bug when my dad was here helping with all of the house improvements and from my new under mount lighting.  It's amazing how little fixes and enhancements can really change how you feel about a place.  We still haven't decorated any walls, new 6 panel doors we had hung throughout the house last April have yet to be painted, many rooms either need paint retouched or we'd like to completely change the color, there's gross carpet to pull up, a laundry area that desperately needs some TLC, a cedar closet to refurbish and a guest room that is seriously lacking in furniture.  We have our work cut out for us but I know I'll be so much happier in this house when it's all done.

ADDED 1/9/2013: I forgot that I also want to master a creme brulee!  We have the ramekins and torch but we've never attempted to actually make creme brulee and it's my favorite. 

So that's it.  Nothing crazy and I think it's all attainable.  2012 was great and I'm excited to see what 2013 brings!

Let it Snow

For about a week and a half straight, we had snow everyday.  We were even under a blizzard warning at one point.  I didn't mind any of it because the girls were out of school for Christmas break and Bill was home everyday (not necessarily the whole day) too.  I was in Heaven.  The week and a half break felt like it lasted forever and I loved it.

Viv was so bundled up, we could barely get her in the car seat.

First day out in the snow!

Eating some lettuce from Audrey's new kitchen.

Seriously, how happy is this kid?!

Helping with dinner.  Audrey's really quite the helper in the kitchen.

Snow day #2 with Daddy.  The pics are dark because I was sitting inside with Viv taking these.  Snow ball incoming!

Extreme close up:

Our neighbor Eli is in the background:

Snow day #3 - making a snowman!

Check out his hair.  :)  Apparently I didn't make the snowman big enough because when we went inside, Audrey complained to Bill that he was small!

Sugar cookies!

Playing with her new tablet from Aunt Dawn:

Sitting in the "car" going for a drive.  I LOVE that Audrey is including Vivian!

Let There Be Light

For Christmas this year, I asked Bill to get me under mount lighting over our stove.  Real sexy, I know.  We'd mentioned adding the lighting a few times in the year and a half that we've lived here but it was just never high on the priority list.  This was the best Christmas gift EVER.  Seriously, I'm ridiculously excited to have light and it really makes cooking so much better.

So a quick, funny story.  On Christmas Eve when Santa was putting together Audrey's kitchen, he was assembling something and wasn't sure what it was.  Behold....Audrey's own under mount lighting and she technically got hers before I got mine!  

On a side note, she really needs to do her dishes more often!  I have no idea where she gets that from....

Christmas Magic

Both Bill and I agree that Christmas this year felt so different and magical because Audrey was an active participant.  It was exciting for us all over again, but more importantly, we were excited for HER.  She's starting to really buy-in to the whole Santa thing and it's fun watching her process the notion of naughty/nice, Santa coming into your house at night (creepy!), Santa knowing when you're awake - and therefore, can't stop and deliver toys until you're asleep, leaving cookies out for him, and of course, lots and lots of toys!  She's also discovered the joys of watching a fire in the fireplace and drinking hot chocolate.  I mean, really, what could be better?  We can't wait for Vivian to be able to join in the fun.

On Christmas Eve, we lit a fire, turned on Christmas music, made hot chocolate and sat together to watch the fire.  It was so nice to cuddle as a family.  My mom had gotten Audrey a Hello Kitty Christmas bowl and mug set that included a hot chocolate packet and Audrey has used it a million times already.  My dad wrapped it up this year since it was finally age appropriate.  Again - that's my mom for you - she bought so much stuff that my dad said there are still items for Audrey that just aren't age appropriate yet.  I love it though because it's through these gifts that my mom is living on for Audrey.

When it was finally time to go to bed, Audrey was dragging her feet and just not listening - even though we told her that Santa wouldn't come until she was asleep.  Finally, I told her that I thought I heard Santa's jingle bells and you should have seen the look of terror on her face!  Eyes wide, mouth dropped and she didn't know what to do with herself.  I actually think I unintentionally scared her a little.  That got her moving though, she ran to the stairs to go to bed.   Success!

Earlier in the day we made cookies for Santa.  Audrey asked me if I thought he'd like them! Here they are left out for him along with carrots for the reindeer.

Santa and the reindeer were really hungry!  And yes, Santa loved the cookies.

Presents!!!

It figures that when I finally do make it into the pics, it's right after I get out of bed and am still in my jammies!

Eating her toys:

Books from our cousins - Elaine, Kevin and Meryl.  Elaine is a librarian so the girls get great literary gifts!  Notice Viv is eating hers.  :)

We finally had to take the gifts away from her!

Hmmmm, what's under the sheet?

A new kitchen!

Her new shopping cart so she can buy things for her kitchen:

My First Christmas bib from cousin Ay Ay:

Our Christmas loves: