Easier than I thought

Tonight I had what I thought was going to be a hard conversation with the girls at dinner. Anna started it for me thankfully. We've had pictures of both my Dad and Lee's Dad up for a while now on the wall by the kitchen table plus a picture of my Dad in a nice frame that a former co-worker had given me a while ago. Tonight Anna pointed at the picture of my Dad in the frame (taken just a few days before he died) and asked "Who that?". I told her that it was a picture of her Grandpa and that he would love to know her and Lily. So we talked (me mostly) about him and the picture (He on chair. He have pillow.). During the conversation she would ask or say "That Grandpa" and I'd tell her that yes that is your Grandpa and My Daddy, Mommy's Daddy. I told her that I will tell her and Lily all sorts of stories someday about my Daddy and that he was a nice guy. His name was John.

Later she saw the 2 pictures of my Dad and Lee's Dad on the wall and asked "Who that?" (pointing towards Walter's picture). So Lee told her that it is a picture of his Dad. Daddy's Dad. She then pointed to the other picture (my dad) and asked "Who that?". That's Mommy's daddy. That might have confused her a little since it's a picture of my Dad at a year or maybe around age 2 (he's wearing short sleeves and shorts and was born in the winter). I didn't hear the whole conversation since I was busy cleaning up at this point.

I have to admit that as much as I have prepared myself for this conversation, it was still hard to have. There are so many things that I want to tell them about my Dad and how much I loved him and how cheated I feel that he never got to see or do. I hold tight to my weird belief that somehow my Dad knows that these beautiful little girls exist and that he's watching out over all of us. The conversation though was alot easier than I thought it would be. I kept it to what they wanted to know (Lily was on my lap eating and listening mostly). Answered the questions that were asked and didn't give any extra info that they wouldn't understand at this point. It was a good icebreaker for all of us. We'll see where it goes from here.

Surprise !!!!

Anna is full of all sorts of surprises lately... She has peed on the potty twice for us.. only thing is that she will only produce (so far) on a Saturday and only in the morning. We have been cheering wildly for her and making a huge deal out of it and giving her a sticker for her chart when she does produce. Lily on the other hand seems to be watching what Anna does and is taking her cues from her. So far no actual pee pee from her in the potty but she'll get there in her own time. Lily likes to wear her big girl panties instead of pull-ups lately. Today actually she wore them and kept them dry for almost 2 whole hours before she had a pee accident. Not too shabby. She did try the potty a couple of times though during that time period.

Anna has a new 'game' that she likes to play with us lately.. it's called 'I have a surprise'. How it works is that she takes something and puts it behind her back and then says 'I have a 'prise for you'. Sometimes it's my book that I'm reading, her cup, a toy, her special little girl knife that I let her use for making Peanut Butter sandwiches or even a shoe. When she is ready to show you what she has she does a big reveal and shouts out "Surprise!!". It's really really cute. I look forward to this game everytime she plays it.

The Knitting Gods must be Crazy

Trying really hard not to tempt the Knitting Gods into making me slip up on the 2nd sock.

I've been really really careful on the 2nd sock so far. My only mistakes that I can tell are not doing a yarn forward once or twice (I think) and not having the correct number of stitches. Thankfully I have been remembering some very sage advice that I got from a friend that told me that I can sort of fudge things and pick up the yarn bridge between stitches to make a stitch if needed and hopefully noone will notice. A huge plus of knitting something that has a lace pattern is that there are supposed to be holes, so if an extra one pops up, it's not a huge problem.

I really am impressed with myself on this second sock so far. I haven't had to frog any of it. I'm currently past the point where I went majorly off track with the first sock and had to frog it 3 times before I got it right and had a completed sock. I think the biggest reason for the difference is that I actually have directions that are correct this time since I took the time to write out the directions for myself after going through the stress of incorrect pattern directions for the first sock and having to get them corrected quite a few times by friends and by going to the website for the pattern maker to look for corrections. Hopefully I'll soon have a complete pair of socks and then I can work on my next few projects. I still have 2 blankets on needles and want to start to make my nieces and my own girls a sweater each for Christmas. I need a really simple pattern for that. If anyone knows of one please let me know (sizes 3/4T - my girls , 6/8 - for D and 8/10 - for S).

Dear Santa

I regret to inform you that it is now almost March and you are still here. Yes I know that Lily is attached to you lately quite a bit. But you need to move on and head back to the North Pole very soon. I think a couple of your friends are stilling hanging out with you here too. Please let them know that they need to head back to the North Pole soon too since we need to start getting ready for a new friend that is coming to town soon. We will look forward to your return after Thanksgiving. Till then we have so many other friends to play with that we are looking forward to meeting while you are gone such as the Lucky the Leprechaun, the Easter Bunny, the Great Pumpkin and Tom Turkey.

With Love,

Mommy Ringen

Presenting Princess Lily

So it started innocently enough... we were basically trying to get the girls to wear nightgowns one night and they weren't really into it till we told them that Princesses wear them.. Then they discovered Angelina Ballerina and all the nightgowns and dresses that we own turned (almost magically) into Princesses and Ballerinas.. so now whenever they want to wear a dress they tell us that they want to be a Princess or a Ballerina.

Cut to tonight and getting ready for bed. Lee and I had decided that the girls would wear their blanket sleeper pajamas to bed since it's going to be somewhat cold tonight and they don't always like to have blankets on them while sleeping. Anna usually wears hers happily and doesn't usually ask to switch. Lily is another story entirely. The girl strips at the drop of a hat. I'm never surprised to see her running around with just a diaper and a smile. If you ask her nicely enough she will usually put on her jammies again (she loves the zipper) but sometimes she just a girl on a mission. Tonight was one of those nights.. Tonight she unzipped herself, ran around for a while in her diaper and then proceeded to the closet and asked (very very nicely) to be a Princess tonight.. luckily I have some warm nightgowns for them so she got to have the Cupcake Princess tonight. She even put it on all by herself.

The ABCs of me...

A friend of mine who has a blog that I LOVE had this type of blog today and she challenged everyone to do their own on their blogs and report back and even link back (I have no clue how to do that).. So without further adou...

A is for Anna my sweet girl who has been so good lately about listening but has been winding up in our bed by 6 or 6:30am lately.. I see stickers in her future for staying in her room till the sun is awake.

B is for Babies.. which I think I no longer have here anymore with the exception that the girls still wear diapers..

C is for Cheerios my favorite snack food ever.. probably my first snack food ever

D is for Dolls.. since I feel like we are overrun by the sheer number of them that we have at the moment.

E is for Excess and I'm working on getting rid of as much of it as I can. Mostly from the basement since there is stuff down there from when we moved in almost 12 years ago on the first floor and now we live on the 3rd.

F is for Fun even on the dreariest of days by playing Tea Party and building with blocks

G is for Girlfriends. They truly make life grand and are there when you need them.

H is for Healthy. Knock on wood let's hope we stay that way for a while.

I is for Indecision. I have a hard time making decisions at times and lately they are getting harder to make.

J is for Juggling. I've been doing quite a bit of juggling lately with my job at the toystore, care for the girls, and being a Mommy and a Wife.

K is for Knitting. It's keeping me sane lately. Which is a really good thing right now since I need some sanity in my life at the moment.

L is for Leland and Lily.. my hubby and my Baby Girl. I love them so much even though they are both giving me a run for my money at the moment.

M is for Mini Eggs and my one salvation at the moment. I only get to eat them one time of year and lately I have been really stressed and I am really trying to be good about not eating too many to get me through the current rough spots in my life.

N is for Nieces. I have two really cute ones that I got to hang out with last weekend at my Mom's and at their house.

O is for Osmonds.. Donny and Marie specifically since their CD is in my car and I don't care what anyone thinks of me.. I love to sing their songs.

P is for Potty Training (Learning). We are in the midst of this lately.. Oh what fun.

Q is for Quiet. My current favorite sound since it usually means that the girls are asleep and all is well. Though sometimes quiet is something that I don't like cause it means that the girls are doing something that I'm not going to like.

R is for Running. I haven't been running in a while now and I really need to get back into the habit since Spring is coming again and I have a few races to train for on my radar.

S is for Sleep... I really need more of it lately.

T is for Time which I feel like I am lacking as of late. Everyone seems to need me to be everywhere at once and there just isn't enough of me to go around.

U is for Understanding and compassion. Everyone needs a bit of both.

V is for Vet. I need a new one for my kitties. Any recommendations ?

W is for Weight. I have been losing some as of late.. not really sure how much since I'm not really a scale watcher..but I'm guessing it's close to 13lbs.

X is for X-rays. Lee had some done today and we are waiting for results on them.

Y is for Yarn Harlot.. I am loving her books right now and I love reading her blog. I want to be her someday.

Z is for Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz..

Oh what a (Knitting) Night

Just about every Wednesday night at about 6pm and till 8pm (closing time) I go to a Starbucks to participate in a Knitting Group. We never know who or how many people will be there so every week it's an adventure and there is quite a bit of table rearranging going on as people arrive. The past few weeks with all the snow and such there have been very few knitters on Wed nights and usually we have the place to ourselves and we can hear most of the conversations that are happening at our tables.

Tonight was an exception.. there was barely any parking available (it happens even with noone being there) and within 30 min of being there, the Starbucks was bursting with people.. 2 knitting groups (us and one other that is there occasionally), 2 guys that might have been doing an interview (they were behind me and I could hear some of their conversation), a guy on his laptop working away and various other customers that were going in and out along with the usual suspects (like the delivery guy that usually blocks all the cars in). At the end of the night I stopped and counted the number of knitters just in our group and we were one short of a dozen people. That number does not account for the one knitter who usually brings her husband along with her when she comes (he doesn't knit). If I did count him then we'd have been an even dozen. I knew of a couple people that were planning on coming but due to other stuff they didn't make it. Had they made it we would have had nowhere for them to sit anyway.

I love when this happens even though it drives my brain crazy from all the background noise that is happening. I'm still amazed that I didn't come home with a headache.

That was waiting for when I got home.. the mess that the girls made of the living room was astonishing and they even got into some birthday cards that I had bought for my best friend, her twin and my brother. I'm thankful that they "only" ripped the envelopes and not the actual cards themselves. I can repair that type of damage. Time for mommy to continue moving stuff up another level that the girls (hopefully) can't reach until they grow again.