Total Hilarity

I've been gone in San Francisco for work this week and greatly missed my family.

Craig told me a story today about Darcy during one of the days I was gone:

He was wiping her down at the end of the day in the girls' bathroom and noticed that Darcy picked up Camryn's toothbrush off the counter.  He said he really didn't think anything about it and so he looked down to wipe her legs and the next thing he noticed she was scrubbing her butt crack with Camryn's toothbrush!  OMG! I love this story. 

He promised me, by the way, that he replaced the toothbrush before Camryn got a hold o fit.



Sporting sissy's Hello Kitty hat.

I got 3 whole hours to see the city while we were there.  The rest was inside a hotel conference room. It was raining and cold most of the time anyway.

My first trolley ride!

We reached the end of the line so played around a bit!  (No, I was not drinking.)

Yes, I went to my first official tea party last weekend.

I remember like it was yesterday tearing up at lunch with Craig.  We had just come from the doctor's office and we found out we were having a girl.  Growing up with two brothers plus Kathy's three boys and then adding another brother to the list when I got married, had not given me a ton of experience with girls.

I was happy, don't get me wrong.  But the tears were from a slight fear of not knowing what to do with a daughter.  "I don't want to go to tea parties," I whined to Craig.  To which he replied "just because we're having a girl does not mean you have to go to tea parties. It will be fine."  So I continued with the thinking I am not getting her pink and I won't encourage the princess-loving, dress-wearing, tea-party going activities.  Girls look beautiful in greens and blues.  I didn't register for anything pink and so we had lots of gender neutral clothes. 

In fact, she was called a boy more times than I can count.  Didn't really bother me.  OK, annoyed me a bit.  But on the rare occasion I did have her in pink, people would call her a boy anyway, so I don't blame the clothes for that.

Fast forward 6 years later and I have a girlie girl on my hand. 

Not diva-like though.  She doesn't stamp her feet and demand to wear certain things or anything. In fact, I lay out her clothes every night before school and she goes with the flow.  (Love that about her!) 

I have to admit that I perpetuate it a bit.  When I was exposed to the wide world of insanely cute girl clothes, I was hooked and all too quickly wooed to the dark side (or should I say the side with the pink ruffles and baby dolls and butterflies).  And she does have many dresses in her closet and more shoes than an almost 6 year old should have. But that's okay.

So at long last, I went to my first official princess tea party over the weekend.  And to see the smile on Camryn's face from the moment we walked in and she saw the dress she got to model that day to the very end when Cinderella was teaching her a proper curtsy, I have to say I didn't give tea parties their proper due.  I enjoyed it (and the pink princess lemonade). 

Camryn's art project at the tea party.  The dress is actually her hands upside down.  And she picked out the blue/red/green/pink combo. LOL!

One of the highlights of the day for her.  She gave her a picture that she colored and got a chance later to ask her all kinds of questions.  She told me later that she asked Cinderella about her stepsisters and stepmother. Camryn told her that she didn't like them very much and Cinderella said "they can be mean."

Eating the crown-shaped icing from her cupcake.

Camryn got to model one of the dresses from a local designer's spring line.  And yes, we later bought it. :)

Love this girl.  She has such a good heart.  So sweet. 

We shared a table with a couple of my friends and their sassy daughters. 

LOVE this poem.

Saw this on Pinterest and just had to share here.  What a sweet poem.

Another proud moment

Yes, it's gross, but I thought it was funny.  Darcy has hit her stage where she is infaturated with the toilet.  Thinks she wants to go potty, but really she just wants to play with the toilet paper and pretend to wipe. 

PLUS there was nothing but toilet water in there afterwards AND I washed her hands afterwards.  So since I've added the disclaimers, you can giggle at the pictures too.

Better Parenting

Craig and I realized yesterday that we need to be more aware of what Darcy is doing after:

1.) I found a formerly full jar of vaseline (the big size) completely empty with its contents coating her shirt, pants and hair and also caked (and I mean caked) on 10 spindles coming down the stairs.  Thank goodness she didn't touch the walls.

 and

2.) she was in the computer room with him while he was reading an article and the when he looked up she was standing on the computer desk.  Only wish he had a camera.

Leverage

Last night I was reading to Camryn and started to hug her goodnight and she said "Please can I have one more story?"
Me:  "No. You need to get up bright and early for school tomorrow."
Camryn: "I will give you the best back scratch ever!"
Me:  "You can give me a back scratch, but we're done on stories."
Camryn: "I'll give you a back scratch every day this summer."

Her back scratches are good, but it's like she thinks they're currency.

Craig said she used it on him the other day also.  She got really mad at him and in her heat of the moment, tears were streaming down and she said "I'm never giving you a back scratch again!"  LOL!  And then later she told him she didn't mean it. 

Love that girl and her sweet innocence.

Funky Februrary...so far

Feb's been off to a odd start for our family.

On Feb 2, I got a call from Craig saying he was on his way to pick up Darcy from school about 11:00.  She had fallen on the playground and damaged another tooth.  It wound up being completely jammed up into the gums and we had to have a surgeon completely remove it last week.  So she's gone from a cute chubby toddler with just 1/2 a front tooth missing to a cute chubby toddler with 1 1/2 front teeth missing.  It's okay now, but I really dread when she gets older.  I'm hoping

Here was the last picture of her before she had the accident at school.  They had pajama day the day before and the teacher snapped a really great picture of Darcy.

And today, except for the gap in her mouth you really would have no idea anything happened 10 days ago. Thank God she is back to her normal self.  Well, she might actually be a bit goofier.  She's turned into a little one girl comedy show.  And she continues to be fearless.  Climbing on chairs and tables and threatening to jump off stairs to get our reaction.  I haven't got a toothless shot yet.  I've tried, but she's more interested in seeing the picture then smiling for one. 

Also on Feb 2, when I came home from work, Craig told me there were blood spots all over the main floor carpet.  Figuring the cats got into or Jake cut his paw on something, I was surprised to find it was Josie.  She had a pretty bad open cut on her stomach and I couldn't find anything she would have scraped it against.  I took her into the vet and she had a fast moving skin mass that wasn't going to fade away with any medication or surgery.  We had to make the decision to put her down the next morning.  Totally unexpected and it happened really fast.  That made it worse.  And it was on top of a up and down day for us with Darcy too.  Bless Craig's heart for being willing to take Josie to the vet and not leave with her.  I honestly don't think I could have done it.  She was our first family pet.  Actually, she was a Christmas gift for me the 2nd year we were married.  Craig had lined up to get a kitten from one of his students and in the cold weather, the kitten must have worked it's way under their house.  So we went to the Open Door Shelter the day after Christmas and found Josie (aka Tammy) in the older cats.  She came right to Craig, not historically a cat person, and so we knew she was a winner.  The tiniest cat in the room ("our little 6 pounder", as Craig would call her). 

Poor Jake has been clinging to us for more attention in the evenings.  He really misses her.

We miss you Josie Cat!

So that's been the first third of the month.  Here's hoping it looks up.
--------------------------------
On a brighter note, Camryn went to a birthday party on Saturday.  I think this pic is hilarious.

Ewww!

Darcy has learned to blow her nose.  Well kind of.  She's really great at wiping her nose.  And then completes the action with a ceremonial "ewww" upon inspection of her kleenex. LOL!

She's become quite the imitator. It took one time for Darcy to witness Camryn complaining when I try to get all of the tangles out of her hair.  Now I can barely get the brush near Darcy's head and I hear "OUCH!"  That child doesn't have a tangle on her head.

For some reason I can't get this into Camryn's head that Darcy watches her every move. Forget the whole imitation is the best form of flattery bunk. No still means no regardless of which child is performing the act.


 
 

December in 5 minutes

OK, so I've resorted to month-long blogs.  I would love to be one of those clever bloggers that has something witty or prolific or even halfway interesting to say just from living life each passing day, but let's face it...I'm not that person.  So you get what you get. :)

As usual, our December was jam-packed.  From anniversary parties to work events and travel to Christmas Concerts and a musical, and well shopping and wrapping and baking.

And even now, I'm tired.  The only thing standing between me and hittin' the hay is my promise to myself to update this dang thing and my Rolling Stone recapping 2011.  No, I don't normally read Rolling Stone, but I couldn't find a People or an Entertainment magazine, so this edition looked promising.  So far, so good.

So here you go...

Early December, we threw an overdue 40th anniversary party for my awesome parents.  We were so grateful to have everyone turn out.  It was crappy weather and most guests didn't know how to get to my house without some type of GPS device.

Here is everyone that made it.  Somehow, the flash went off and everyone was smiling and looking toward the camera and their eyes were open!!  Thanks to all who celebrated with us.

The happy couple!  Happy 40th anniversary Mom & Dad!

An awesome picture.  Too bad such a rare moment.

This is Aunt Linda's creation.  She brainstormed with a local bakery and had this awesome cake highlighting key moments along their "road to 40 years".

On the 17th, Mom and I spent the entire day baking.  The entire day!  We always make way more cookies than we need.  And then when it comes time to making up plates for people, we're like "okay who else can we give cookies to?" Ha!  The best part for me is time with my mom (and the chocolate chip cookies that I'll grab from the freezer later in February will be a nice treat too!)

This was our only trip to visit Santa this year.  I would have liked to go visit a real Santa.  This was the' Breakfast with Santa' Santa at Camryn's school.  And he clearly painted his beard.  Blah!  Ah well. It's a decent shot.  Darcy wouldn't go near him without me there.  At her school, Santa came by to visit her classroom and the teachers said she ran away from him but kept saying "ho, ho, ho" the rest of the afternoon.  Never heard her actually say "santa" this year.  It was always "ho, ho, ho" anytime she saw him on TV or a picture.  So cute!

Darcy posing before her Christmas concert.

We were here a total of 10 minutes.  Drop Darcy off, sit down, watch Darcy stare out to the audience, pick Darcy up from her teachers and head home. (Craig was really happy to go. LOL!)

The highlights just keep coming.  We bought Charlotte a ticket to see Beauty & the Beast at the Fox Theatre for Christmas.  It turned into a gift for me and Camryn too. Charlotte came over and spent the night.  Then the "big girls" went to the finest dining establishment within 10 minutes of our house...Red Robin, where the girls dined on corn dogs and mandarin oranges.  (YUCK!)  They got so tired of me taking their picture.  But both of them will do goofy smiles (or not smile at all) at different times, so my odds are better if I just keep snapping away.

Getting ready to see the show!

So excited.  And they're so pretty in their fancy dresses.

A quick intermission.  The girls looked through the windows overlooking the lobby.  Must have seen somethign they liked.

As for Christmas, well, we had a fantastic one.  Can't even tell you how blessed my whole family is to have one another and be able to enjoy each other.  Jeff flew in for several days and got lots of time with the nieces.  They just flock to him, and he soaks it up and lets them climb all over him.

And onto Christmas Morning...

Charlotte Grayce

Charlotte and Darcy passing out the gifts.  This is about all Darcy wanted to do with the gifts until someone would open one for her and she realized there was something to play with inside.

Mom got Charlotte and Camryn these Hello Kitty hats.  LOVE them.  They are so cute on.

Here's one from earlier int he morning.  Darcy was going through her stocking and showing us what she got. :)

Jeff strumming on his new mandolin.

Jon and Craig got these books from a secret person (Dad) called "Go the F&*$ to sleep".  I had read it before but it really is so funny and painfully true.  Jon was crying he was laughing so hard at the book.

Maybe next year she will learn that toys take too much work to get them out of the box.  But the baby Rapunzel was a hit with the grand kids, which was all she needed to know.

For the two people that read this, I hope you enjoyed.  I wish you a blessed and healthy 2012.