It's a Snow Day

5 days till Christmas and we finally got some snow... Wahoooo...

Here's some of the fun that we've been having today...

Girls and I got up and had bowls of Cheerios together... it was so much fun and even more fun when i found the contents of one bowl on the floor.. oh well ... there was no milk in the bowl (I give it to them dry) so it was easy enough to pick up..

Elmo had breakfast with us today.. Lily fed him some cereal bar and possibly some pancake too.. it's so great to see her imagination growing by leaps and bounds already.

Lily and Anna had a great time twirling with Daddy in the living room.. I tried to get it on the video camera but I was a little late..

Since Daddy slept in... I couldn't make us all pancakes for breakfast so instead I made everyone pizza for lunch.. I had gotten a pizza kit at the grocery store yesterday.. It came out so great and we ate the entire thing..

While the girls napped I turned our bedroom into a wrapping area and got all the presents wrapped for Lily, Anna, S and D. Then I attacked the girls closet and took out all the clothing that we should still be able to wear in the spring or early summer. Plus I think a few people have gotten them some clothing for the holidays so I needed to make room for that in their closet.

While I was working on the closet, Lily got a chance to look out the window in their room at the snow on the ground.. she had a great time doing that.. especially when I took an empty laundry basket and turned it over for her to stand on at the window.

We've had some cute moments today in toddler speak.. They were watching Sesame Street on On Demand and they got to their favorite part (Elmo's World) and at the end Elmo told his fish Dorothy to say "goodbye" and both Anna and Lily said "Buh Bye" and "Bye Bye".

Maybe by our next snowy day the girls will be able to go out and play in the snow..

Long time no Blog Posts

Sorry about that... time has been scarce lately... with Holiday preparations and trying to get my knitting done and then finding out that Lily needs glasses to hopefully fix her eyes (she's farsighted) and trying to get her to wear them (unsuccessful so far).. so what shall I post? I'm pretty close to finishing one of the knitted party dresses. I'm looking forward to being done so I can concentrate more on dress #2 which will be pink and yellow with some white mixed in. I also want to move on to a new project.. maybe a hat this time.. my local knitting store is collecting helmet liners for the troops that are currently in Iraq or was it Afganistan. I so want to be able to make at least 1 to send but at the rate that I knit the war might be over by the time I finish or get a chance to start.

The girls and I had a few fun moments today in the car.. we were leaving daycare and on our way to Grandma's when it started.. the little mouth noises.. Anna was doing them first and then Lily joined in.. before I knew it Anna switched to blowing "raspberries" and then Lily joined in blowing them too.. I couldn't help myself and I blew some back at them which started about 4 or 5 more rounds of raspberries being blown. I had such a fit of the giggles with this... As we got on our way home Anna and Lily started blowing the raspberries again.. such cuteness. It was hard to not join in again..

Both Anna and Lily are getting to be creatures of habit.. as we drove home from Grandma's tonight and turned down our street, they started to very excitedly say... "Dada... Daddy... Dada... Daddy" over and over.. I felt bad bursting their bubbles with the news that Daddy wouldn't be home when we got there. They seemed to be ok with this but it was amazing for me to realize that they know that when we get home from daycare (usually) that Daddy will be there waiting for us and will come and help us up to the apartment.

It's only words...

These are the words that Anna and Lily can currently say:

Momma

Dada

Anna

Ball

Baby

Hi

Kitty

Cat

Hi there

Hi Baby

Hi Kitty

washcloth (said by Lily in the tub tonight)

Ducky

Mommy

Mom

Daddy

something that sounds like Grandma or Nana

Baba (our word for Bottle or Cup)

Baby baby = Baby Signing Time dvd

Elmo

More

Eiya (daycare lady's daughter)

Uh-Oh

Bye Bye

No

Sit

Yeah Yeah





They can also sing or get the tune for the following songs :

ABCD (alphabet song)

Twinkle Twinkle

Row Row (Row your Boat)

Baby Baby (Baby Signing Time)

Over the Road (a lap ride song that we do at a music class)

Trot Trot to Boston (lap ride)


I think that there are more... but I just can't remember them all right now..

Anna is the best Big Sister

Poor Lily and Anna... we got our H1N1 shot, Seasonal Flu shot and HepA shot on Tuesday... they both didn't react very well afterwards.. ok they fell asleep in the car on the way home and had some discomfort but we've always had that happen. Wednesday Lily was a mess and Anna was ok (or seemed to be) so Anna went to daycare by herself while I went to work at Carter's for a few hours. Not too long after I got to Carter's Lee called to tell me that daycare had called to tell him that Anna wasn't acting like herself at all.. screaming and just not a happy kid.. I told Lee that if he had to, he could call my mom to watch Lily while he went to go get Anna. I wound up getting her myself on my way home after my shift was over.. That evening Anna was really great to Lily (heck she always is) and helped Daddy get a blanket for Lily and even rubbed her back and brought her the Elmo balloon that we got them a couple of weeks ago to play with.

So fast forward to this afternoon... Lily was having a hard day after a hard night and early morning. I brought the girls over to Grandma's for our weekly dinner and fun night. We got back and Grandma had Lily in the rocking chair in their room. Anna is following me around and trying to be helpful and sees that Lily is sleeping on Grandma and goes to investigate. Grandma told her that Lily is sick and sleeping.. Anna (good sister that she is) goes to Lily's crib and pulls down Lily's Pooh Bear blanket and brings it to Grandma for Lily.. what a nice sister she is.

Knitting Progress

I am finally feeling some progress is being made on the dresses that I am knitting for Anna and Lily. I finished the front piece the other night though I want to get the opinions of my knitting friends on Wed night since I think that the front and the back might not exactly match lengthwise on the neck pieces.. In the meantime I have decided to forge ahead and started the sleeves for dress #1. It seems to be moving quickly. I am still not in love with doing Picot Rows but I think that I am getting better at them.. I might actually have a chance at having most of the first dress done by Christmas. Dress #2 I know won't be done in time at all since I am barely even done with the skirt part on the back piece.

Here's a couple pictures of Dress #1....

Front

Back

Tantrums R Us

Awww yes... we have entered Tantrum land now that the girls are 18m old. Actually Lily isn't too bad.. mostly will get overly upset when I try to leave her or go out of her sight. It's Anna that is having the full blown tantrums. I swear in the last week or so we have hardly gone a full day without her having a tantrum for what seems like no reason at all. It's such a joy to go through. I can hardly wait till she can actually tell us why she is upset. Till then we will do our best to get through the food flings and the full body throwdowns that she does. They are hard for me to ignore (ped's advice) and make me feel like the world's worst mom ever at times. Eventually my smiley happy girl returns but I never really know when she's going to have a tantrum. I hope that this is just a phase...

Fun at the Zoo

What a fun day we had today... We were supposed to go out somewhere yesterday but it was Pouring Rain most of the day and it just didn't seem worth getting the girls in and out in the rain so we put off outside plans till today. So once I woke up (yeah I slept in till almost noon - it was nice) we quickly decided to try to go somewhere... we wound up at the Stone Zoo.. I tried to put in a vote for the Franklin Park Zoo but I got voted down. Plus it was 1:30 by the time everyone was dressed and ready. Anyway.. we had a nice time.. Lily loves animals so we wanted to see her and Anna's reactions to the animals. They seemed to like the exhibits but the clear favorite was the Bear exhibit since we could get their strollers close to the glass and the bears kept walking past them and looking at them. The squeals of delight were so nice to hear as was hearing Anna say "Ted..Teddy" as she looked at the bears. Hope we can go back soon since Zoo Lights starts the day after Thanksgiving . Hopefully we can buy a Membership in the near future. Hmmm that might make a really nice gift for our family for Christmas.