I have no idea where Andrea picked this up, but recently she has become the monitor for our home, friends, church, and even TV when it comes to language. Apparently, we are not allowed to say 'stupid' or 'dang it.' Not sure why. But we can't. And she'll catch you and tell you so every time. It's truly amazing. I could whisper the word to Mark 2 rooms away, and she'll come running in, "We don't say 'dang it'!!!"
Dang it!
There's something about a small space that toddlers can't resist trying to climb into. This doll crib from Grandma Pat is Lacie's favorite place to hang out and chill.
P.S. Anyone recognize the dress? It's one I used to wear. Awwww!
So I was feeling really bad about Lacie's "abbreviated" party on Tuesday. The girls had not been especially well-behaved, I felt sick and Mark had come home with a head-ache. So it wasn't all that I had planned. Oh well. So we decided to "make up for it" on Saturday night by taking the girls to Chuck E. Cheese with all our saved up free-token coupons (thank goodness for those!). Unfortunately, poor Lacie was absolutely overwhelmed by all the noise and kids and lights and everything else going on there. She found a ride that she loved and clung to it all night. And then threw a tantrum any new 2 yr old could be proud of when we finally pried her fingers off it.
Andrea, on the other hand, was in hog heaven. Absolutely in her element. Loved the noise, the kids, the lights and sounds - all of it. In fact, we thought we'd lost her a few times until we found her hiding in the tunnel up over-head. The best part for her? She got to see the "big mouse!"
Lately the kids have become obsessed with the laundry baskets. They love to sit, play, eat, "rest," and ride around in them.
One night Mark was left on his own to get the girls to bed. They happened to be pretty wound up, so he made them little beds in their laundry baskets and let them 'go to bed' in there. Amazingly, they actually did fall asleep.
Ah! Again! Somehow I am not learning my lesson! This morning I found that Andrea had found last 2 remaining cupcakes from last night (Lacie's birthday party) and helped herself to them in bed. And then...I found that she had shared! How nice!
P.S. Needless to say, I wasn't too thrilled with Andrea, but I didn't know what to do in terms of punishment. So I made her sit on her bed while I called Mom & Dad. A lot of help they were! They just said that either I shouldn't refuse food to the kids or keep the cupcakes higher! Thanks. Instead I made Andrea help pull the sheets and blankets off the beds and stuff them in the washer. Good thing she didn't like it - at first I was afraid she'd think it was fun and then want to do it every morning!
So it was a big milestone today. Lacie turned 2! And, funny enough, the atti2de came right along with it! Wow! Who knew it happened so fast?
We had a rough day so that night we celebrated with an abbreviated party. Not like she'll ever know the difference - until she reads this someday that is...
The girls just LOVE climbing on Mark and having him walk around like a horse. I mean, what kid doesn't? Anyway, I think that Mark secretly loves it as much as they do!
A couple weeks back I picked up the movie Singing in the Rain. I didn't think the kids would really 'get' it, but I put in on for them anyway. About a week later I was walking into the toyroom when I overheard Andrea saying, "No, no, no...Yes, yes, yes..."
Hysterical!
This is how Lacie sleeps. Every night. Since the day she got home from the hospital. The second time. I love it!
Okay, so these are not the most flattering pics of my kids, but everyone already knows how cute they are, so no biggie. The point of them is to demonstrate my new-and-improved already-brilliant kid food. I guess I have to admit that I did get the idea from a magazine, but the improvement was all mine (even if it was by accident).
So the idea is to use ice cream cones to serve messy foods, like chicken salad. And you can "dress" it up with a funny face made w/ a cherry tomato nose, celery slice eyes, and silly shredded cheese clown hair. Anyway, it's awesome! It's easy to hold, fun to eat, and as long as you don't get sugar-cones, they only have 15 calories each with NO SUGAR! Amazing!
So the new-and-improved idea that I happened upon was when I accidentally bought the tiny-sized cones ("kid sized" said the box). Even better! The kids actually eat way more because they like eating the cones! I love it! Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!
(Andrea) "Daddy needs some medicine."
(Net) "What kind of medicine?"
(Andrea) "Some sick medicine."
This morning I was reading a friend's blog entry about a very bad day she had. In a comment I posted to her I attempted consolation by relaying my day's bad experience. Little did I know it was only the beginning...
The day didn't start so bad. It was pretty good, actually. By 9:30am we were all up, dressed, fed, and ready for Emily Clark and her son, William, to come over so we could practice (violins). That doesn't happen every day, sadly. And we were actually able to get in some good practice in spite of the demands for juice, water, food, toys, play violins, etc. As things were wrapping up, though, we started talking about how the program that we were playing for would proceed. It wasn't until that moment that I realized the ward Christmas party was going to be the "Jeanette Viehweg show." Ahh! I was putting together and directing 2 of the 3 musical numbers, playing the 3rd musical number, then playing background music for the nativity scene. Then I was supposed to be one of 3 elves in a play where we discuss our concern over Santa being too fat to fit through the chimney. I got to be the one to tell everyone they needed to take diet pills and stop eating Thanksgiving leftovers. Umm..... how did this happen?!
As the panic set in, patient Emily started going over my options and ways in which I could gracefully or not-so-gracefully get out of the different things. And then it was quiet. Too quiet. Emily noticed it first, scared that maybe William had gotten into the Christmas tree room (and therefore ornaments). She checked there while I went into the nursery only to stop dead in my tracks with horror. And then start yelling with horror.
Once again, Andrea decided to change her own poopy diaper. With Lacie's assistance.
Poo was smeared everywhere. Especially on the cream-colored carpet. Needless to say, Emily and William made a speedy exit and the girls spent the next hour in their beds while I stripped the room of all poopy clothes/blankets/binky/juice cup/snow boots and then scrubbed the carpet. Not a happy mama. The following hour I locked myself in the bathroom, using a toothbrush to try to get all the poo off Lacie's new boots, which incidentally have the deepest traction things ever. Nooooot happy. So you can understand my frustration when a few hours later Andrea protested her nap by taking the entire bottle of baby powder and dumping it ALL OVER the room - the room with the wet-ish carpet that I had just scrubbed. Not, not, NOT happy.
I guess everything after that is just icing on the cake -- Lacie draws on the newly-bleached brick I slaved over; Mark comes home sick as a dog; Andrea throws a fit to come with me to mutual then complains the whole time that she's hungry; I can't find my glasses to drive and end up late and blind; I missed opening exercises w/ the YM/YW and therefore my opportunity to go through the song they need to learn -- for Saturday; I miss my favorite tv show.
Okay, so still not as bad as Lisa's, but I'm pretty sure if it all happens again tomorrow I'll quit.
Not sure what to say about this, except typical Andrea. This kid is so funny how she lines up things! Here it's her toys, but she'll do it with DVDs, washcloths, credit cards, etc, etc. It's pretty funny. In fact, here's a picture from about a year ago when she took each letter from the alphabet out of a foam thing we had and put them all on their own individual square of TP.
We had decided that since Lex & Nick had just come from Thanksgiving dinner in Austin, and we had just brought back leftovers from the Andersens', and we still had a deep-fried turkey in the fridge from a friend in the ward (who apparently really wants Mark to come work for him!), the idea of another Thanksgiving dinner on Friday was a bit much. So we opted for Saturday. But then we were too tired. So then we figured if it didn't happen Sunday it wasn't going to happen. So we ate that night around 8pm.
Happy Thanksgiving!!
Andrea had a lot of fun with the turkey decorations
Mark making yummy gravy.
Yay to Mark who cleaned up the living room (even vacuumed) and then built a nice, cozy fire to enjoy! It was great! The weather has really cooled down to where it finally feels like...well...fall still, but maybe more late fall. I guess it's a start!
Yay for the Thieles who were able to come up to Dallas for a second round of Thanksgiving! Andrea had been soooo excited for them to come, asking every day for a week if they were coming now. Spencer was so fun! He has grown so much since we last saw him. He was cruising all over the room and playing with the "big kids" like he was one of them. The girls sure loved having him here!
And of course we loved having Nick and Lex with us. Lexye helped me out in RS on Sunday, teaching the women No Golden Carriage, No Bright Toy. Yay! Thank you for that! Oh yeah, and that was after playing Cantique de Noel in Sacrament meeting and I would have made her fill in for my sick ward choir pianist, but Spencer was a little devil and had kept her up all night so we let her rest. (Slacker! jk)
Anyway, we had a great time with them and were all sad to see them go. Especially Andrea. Mark said that night he peeked in on her playing with her toys and she had some of her little puppets in a carriage (from the Weeble-Wobble castle from Rosie & David last Christmas - yes, they still LOVE it!), and then pushed it away while she had other puppets lined up outside the carriage "wave goodbye." Yeah, my kids love you guys.
So I had put Andrea in sweats and a T-shirt for bed. Later that night I had to sneak into the room to put away some laundry and came across the same pair of sweats and T that I had put on Andrea. Upon further investigation I found that Andrea had other pajamas in mind...
(in case you can't tell, that is her princess leotard w/ built-in Tutu and her new hooded Tweety Bird fleece that she wants to wear, well, everywhere.)
Hooray for Thanksgiving!
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I was thankful this year to have not 1, but 2 Thanksgivings. The first was with the Andersens and Newmans, who are family, and have filled in as family for both Mark and me before and after we were married. So we had a great time this year down at Troy & Delsa's newly and beautifully re-done home. Angela and I had a fun day before making pies (6 pumpkin, 2 lemon meringue, 1 apple ... and then she made 2 more chocolate pecan!), Mark made his yummy creamed corn, we pitched in for cost of food and Oila! Easiest Thanksgiving dinner I've ever 'done!'
And while we were there Andrea made a new friend - Daniel - who apparently enjoyed her as much as she enjoyed him! They were so cute!
Poor Lacie had a headache most the night -- because it took us most the night to figure out what was wrong. Poor kid! But after she got some "good stuff" (I am thankful for pain meds) she was back to her fun self. And then made me the proudest mommy in the room when it was time for prayer and she quietly (and un-promtedly) sat down and folded her arms. Aww!
So after a wonderful dinner and a lot of pie, a couple rounds of Bang and Phase 10, we helped break in Troy's new toy, er, Delsa's birthday present - a 58" plasma. Very, very nice. Made Lord of the Rings a lot more fun to watch, that's for sure!
One thing I've been trying really hard to do with my family is make/keep family traditions. It has taken a bit of creativity on my part for some. Others I have gladly gleaned from growing-up - i.e. the "Eating Pumpkin Pie for breakfast on Thanksgiving morning" tradition. Yummm. Thanks Mom & Dad - my kids LOVE this tradition!
It's not unusual that a toddler would think of everything as hers. But it cracks me up when that extends to people as well. Andrea is constantly referring to her friends as 'my kids.' So it really busted me up when we were driving to ward choir practice today and pulled up along-side our neighbors/friends. Andrea exclaimed, "Look! It's my Newmans!"
After church Andrea has been running around, wearing a from nursery that looks like a turkey. When she takes it off I put it on so it doesn't get left or squashed.
(Net) "Andrea, you're such a good kid. I love you."
(Andrea) "I love you too, MamaTurkey."
So we looked more fabulous at the beginning of the night. Hard to tell here. This is after about 4 hours of partying hard on a murder-mystery-filled "cruise-liner." (More pics to come when the hostess develops and sends them.)
It is the year 1914 and Mark (Eldon Dunlop II, ridiculously wealthy American, age 47) and I (Eldon's wife, Candice Dunlop, fashionable flirt, age 21, aka secret government agent who drugged Eldon while gambling in New Orleans and convinced him when he awoke that we had gotten married - all so I could get close to his close, family friend, Secretary of State, Royce Bryce to find out if he was really a spy) were out on a cruise headed for England. Oh yeah, and neither of us knew the other carried a gun. Or who murdered the captain just after he announced Britain and France had declared war on Germany after invading Russia and Belgium. Or if Eldon was part of a gun-smuggling business and trying to 'do me in.'
Good times! Happy Birthday Olivia!
