Happy 3rd Birthday to Emily and Savannah!

Well, today at 11:01pm and 11:07pm Emily and Savannah will officially be 3 years old. I don't think we'll actually wait that late to celebrate, though. We started off the morning with the girls waking up to balloons. Last night I went to Party City to get them each a Tinkerbell balloon and a Happy Birthday balloon. I did pick different Happy Birthday balloons to make it easier for them to know which balloons were their own. As I was getting out of bed, I heard a voice coming from the living room...not sure exactly who's it was--maybe Emily's, saying "Balloons! For me? Thank you, Daddy!". They love balloons, so I knew they would be excited. We then let them open presents from us. A pumpkin shirt for each of them, two Disney princess hair salon kits, complete with battery operated hairdryers,etc. They shared a Caillou video and a plastic farm animals set. I did have a couple of other gifts for them, but in all our hiding of clutter, I couldn't find them. Maybe those gifts will be good for Christmas--if I find them in time (hahahah!).

For lunch, the girls wanted to go to McDonalds, so we picked Seth up from work and all went to eat at McDonalds. The girls were happy and kept asking us if they were 3 now. So cute. Now, they are taking a nap and when they wake up we will decorate cupcakes. Great indoor activity as it is pooring down rain.

Peace in the house!

Finally, the girls are in a phase of life where we finally have peace in the house most of the time. I just realized I haven't called my parents as teachers counselor or educator at all this summer. What an improvement! In the last month I can actually say that most of my days I have really been enjoying being around my girls. They play together more and are fighting less. They seem to cooperate a bit more...at least when options are presented to them. They are in a very silly phase of life, and are asking lots of questions--not the why questions yet, but just about everything. Emily and I had a conversation about God and Jesus the other day. Mostly she was asking if they were going to come to our house, or if they were going to by our house. Then she said she was afraid of them and didn't want them to come. And then a few minutes later, she stated that she wanted God to hold her on his lap when he comes to our house. And then many questions revolving around that situation. Sometimes I'm not quite sure how to answer. I often get the feeling that Emily is frightened by the whole idea that God can be near us without us seeing him like we see each other everyday. I just bought some Bible lesson materials from Mardel and have set a goal to do one lesson per week with Emily and Savannah. I'm hoping that will help with the fear factor a bit. Emily is still afraid to say prayers to God. Savannah on the other hand, requests prayers for God to keep her safe "from the thunder and the lightning and the rain, and keep us safe when we are in the car wash". I hope that I can do a good job of presenting the lessons in a fun way.

Here We Go Again

This morning Savannah woke up saying she was itchy. When I was helping her get dressed, I noticed she had rash under her arms and on her torso and it was spreading down to her hands. I'm almost positive it's hives. I'm pretty sure I know what's causing it--Amoxicillian (Penicillian). She has been on that antibiotic for a Swimmer's Ear infection for 9 days...When Emily had a reaction to this same drug it was on the 10th day of her course of treatment. I'm allergic to it as well, so I guess I'm not surprised. I hope the one dose of Benadryl will take care of it. With Emily we had to load her up on baby prednisol, Benadryl, Zyrtec, and Zantac before she would quit having daily episodes of hives all over her body. Time will tell I guess.

What a busy summer! I haven't sat down much to write about our days because we have been so busy trying to get our house ready to sell. We've been painting, cleaning, fixing, and now photographing our house. It's a long process while trying to take care of 2 1/2 year old twins. Today I owe them some fun. We'll play at the park and swim and hopefully I'll still have energy left to start trying to clean out our basement.

A Great Birthday Week

What a great birthday week! It started off a little hard with the adjustment back from having the girls gone for a few days at the grandparents, but Wednesday, my actual birthday was awesome. Seth took off work all day so that I could have a day to myself. I got to sleep in, go on a walk with my dog, shopping, and a massage. The best part of the day was when I came home from my massage, Savannah and Emily greeted me at the door and yelled "Happy Birthday! We made you a cake!" Seth had taken them to the grocery store to get a cake mix and frosting and then they all came home and baked the cake together. The girls love to help with baking, so they were so proud and excited about the birthday cake.

Then, today I got to hang out with a good friend while our kids played, then we even got some walking in. Later I took another friend's kids to play at the park and McDonald's with Emily and Savannah. They totally loved it! All four kids played so well together. The conversations in the van were entertaining as well. What a fun day!

A Hilarious Coversation

So, today my girls were playing in their little kitchen and their toy telephone rings...to which Emily announces, " I think it's Michael Jackson calling. Yeah, it's Michael Jackson." Savannah replies, "No, he's not done dying yet." Emily responds, "Yeah, they put his body in a basket, a shiny basket." I thought this was hilarious.

3.5 Days Without Kids

For the first time since Emily and Savannah were born, I left them with the grandparents for more than just a night. 3.5 days to be exact. Wednesday I drove the girls to my mom and dad's house and then drove myself back home so Seth and I could get some major spruce up and fixer upper jobs done on our house in preparation of selling it. I originally was worried the girls would not be happy about me leaving them, but it turns out they were quite happy to be with just Grammie and Pop. Yay! So my next thought was that Seth and I were going to get to spend some much needed quality time together...Wrong!! Seth was so project focused he totally didn't get that I needed us to go out and do something we normally can't do with the girls. Silly as it may sound, that something was go eat buffet at Pizza Hut. What a dream date, huh? Well, this was something that Seth and I both enjoyed pre-babies. Now, with Emily having the milk allergy, there is no way we can all go to a pizza place and have something to eat. So, it's been at least 2 years since we've done that. So, when I suggested it to Seth, he was not interested and wanted to keep working on our house. I got mad, had my feelings hurt, and basically was not very nice to him for a good 5 hours that day. When he finally realized I was upset, I yelled and cried and explained what I thought would have been fun. Expressed my worry about what could happen if we don't even take time to spend fun time together outside of our house when we get a break from parenthood for a few days...ahhhhhhh what a day. So frustrating. He saw my point, but by then it was a bit too late to do anything, and I was still a little upset. So, we worked. The next day we spent all day painting and cleaning until midnight. Our house was all out of order by Saturday, so we finished some last minute painting, did finally go out for lunch (although not a Pizza Hut), and then cleaned our house up and put everything back in order so the girls could come home to a safe house.

Now, the adjustment back has been rough to say the least. Yesterday it was Savannah who had tantrum after tantrum. My parents were still here, so I think that contributed to the conflict. My girls got a bit spoiled with attention and williningness to do EVERYTHING for them while they were at Grammie and Pop's house. Today, Emily was in a foul mood from morning till bedtime. I was so ready for them to go to sleep--I was drained, tired of fighting with them, and tired of hearing the word "NO"...and now suddenly Emily is spitting all over the house when she gets mad or doesn't get her way. What is with that, and how do I get her to stop?

We'll see what tomorrow holds.

Memorial Day Weekend...blog a little late

Okay, so I just realized I totally forgot to blog about our Memorial Day weekend mini-vacation. Not that I think it was just so awesome that I need to tell everyone about it, but this blog is also my way of writing down firsts and major events that my girls encounter. So here we go:

We had made plans to go to Beaver Lake (near Rogers, AR) and stay in a cabin. We planned to do some fishing and swim in the lake if it was warm enough. We also were going to meet up with my aunt and uncle and cousins. Well, we traveled to Joplin to meet up with my parents. They had bothed worked all day and so they still had several things to do to get ready to go. After a lot of waiting, and help packing we finally were able to head to the lake. It's about a 2 hour drive from Joplin. We arrived at 12:30am. I'm glad Seth was driving because we ended up driving down the darkest, narrowest, twisty road I've every been on. The girls slept maybe an hour of the trip. It took us awhile to get the van unloaded and sleeping arrangements set up. We were staying in a 2 bedroom cabin, so we had to bring air mattresses for the girls to sleep on. We had to rearrange the furniture in Seth and I's bedroom so we could fit the both mattresses in without causing a major fall hazard. Poor little girls didn't get to bed unitl 1:30am! I think that's the latest they have ever gone to bed since they were tiny babies.

The next day we explored the cabin grounds and went down to the boatdock. The girls were scared at first of the boatdock, so we didn't stay long. We did eventually get the boat in the water and took a very slow and short boat ride. Emily was TERRIFIED of being the boat and was crying and almost screaming to get out. She was fine once Grammie held her hand. When we stopped the boat my dad, Seth, and I got out the fishing poles to do a little fishing, hopefully to catch some white bass. My dad had bought little tiny fishing poles for the girls to use. Earlier Seth had tried to teach the girls how to use the fishing poles back at the cabin. Savannah concentrated hard and really tried to practice casting. Emily didn't want to be shown how to cast and grabbed the pole away and then got mad because she couldn't do it. Wisely, Seth had juts put on the practice butterfly instead of a real hook.

While in the boat, Savannah got brave enough to go sit up front with her fishing pole. She would push the button to drop her line and butterfly into the water, and then just sit and wait, slowly realing her line in. She did this for almost an hour! Pretty good attention span for a 2 year old. She would see Seth or my Dad catch a fish and say "maybe a big wave will come and help me catch a fish". So cute!

We were out for about 1.5 hours and then it started to rain on us, so we went back to the dock and then back to the cabin. It rained for the rest of the day. The next two days were similar in weather, so we didn't spend much time on the lake, thankfully we had nice cabin. My great-aunt was visiting from Cincinnati, OH and she came over to see the girls. She has never seen them except for in pictures until that weekend. A few other relatives came over and we all had lunch together. It was a good visit.

By the time it was time for us to check out on Memorial Day, we were all ready to get back home. The girls kept asking if they could go home or go to Grammie's house. I think 2 full days in a cabin when it rained most of the weekend was enough for everyone. On our way out, we did get to see something unusual. Another guest in the cabin resort we stayed at, was traveling to North Carolina. She was transporting baby kangaroos to a rescue facility. She was getting ready to leave and asked us if the girls would like to see the kangaroos. She had them in the backseat of the car in small fabric pouches. They were cute, a little strange looking too. The girls were a little scared, so we didn't linger for long.

We stopped by my grandparents' house on our way back to Olathe. We had a short, but good visit. My grandpa seemed to be in better health than he has been in a long time. He still is bedridden in the living room of their house, but he seemed alert and spoke a little to us when we arrived. I'm glad my grandparents got to see the girls. I know they wish they could visit with us more often.