Just some pictures

Anna listening to a CD with Daddy..



Anna's Haircut



Anna's Haircut... she seems to like it.

Please excuse the quality since they were taken with Lee's cell phone and not our Digital Camera

It's the little things..

Anna was so adorable this morning... I could hear her over the monitor this morning calling for us.. So I went in to get her and she spotted her baby doll, so we went and got her baby and changed her diaper before heading to the bathroom (Mommy needed to pee badly) where she saw her toothbrush and started chanting "Teeth". So I got her toothbrush and gave it to her.. and she brushed her teeth while I got her and Lily's milk cups ready. Since Lily was still sleeping she and I went into my bed and hung out with Daddy for a little while till I figured it was time to get Miss Lily up and going. It truly is the little things that make me happy lately.

Cute Kid isms..

Ok I just had to share some of the cute stuff that Anna and Lily have been doing lately..

Tonight Anna finally figured out how to climb up into her booster chair at the kitchen table and buckle herself in... She actually already knew how to buckle herself in but the climbing into her seat part is totally new to me (us). The best part was that she decided to go through the mail that was on the table.

This morning Lily and Anna found the baby doll strollers that I had gotten the girls yesterday at BRU... it was so adorable to see them giving their babies rides in the stroller.. I think that they Love the strollers.

They are seriously ADDICTED to Elmo. Lily has a really bad case of Elmo addiction. She took Elmo to daycare twice this week and we almost left him there by mistake on the second day. That would not have been good at all. Anna is addicted to watching Elmo on the TV or the computer. We seriously almost had a huge screaming fit (her not me) over my making her go to bed instead of me trying to find anything Elmo for her to watch or see.

New Year Wrap Up

Happy New Year... I apologize for not really blogging for a while.. Christmas went really well this year. The girls absolutely loved the dolls that Lee and I had gotten them and have barely put them down at all since they got them. We finally got the tree down and outside today (thank you Lee for doing that for us).. having a real tree was great and something that I have sorely missed for the past few years... it was nice to have the space (ok in the landing outside our door) this year and I think that I will miss it even though I've been dying to have our landing back.

I am hopeful that 2010 will be a good year filled with mostly good things that happen.. we deserve it after the awful year that 2009 was for us. Hopefully this coming year will bring new jobs as well as new adventures for us. I'll even go out on a limb and hope that 2010 will bring a change in our housing and that God willing and with hopefully new jobs that we will be able to afford to buy something that we won't mind living in for a really long time to come. In the meantime there are too many things to take care of around here. Maybe this will be the year that I finally go through the stuff that we have in the basement and do a huge purge and reorganization.

I survived today...

Today is the Anniversary of the day that Dad died... Nine years ago I just happened to be at Mom's when Steve called with the news that I never wanted to hear ever... Dad has had a heart attack and is at a hospital in Boston... you need to come.. Somehow I made it into Boston via the T and got to the hospital that Dad was at... Nine years later I still can remember being led into a small room by Steve and being told that Dad didn't make it... that our Dad was gone.. somehow we called Lee and told him and he was there so quickly... Nine years and it still hurts at times..

Today was tough for me.. thankfully the girls made it a slightly better day but that was after taking them to the library for Music time with my friend Meredith and after Lily had a total meltdown from the moment that we left the library till I got her home (we skipped daycare today) and held her for a while till she fell asleep and then melted down again as I tried to get her to take a nap in her crib and failed. I think somehow they knew that I needed them to make me laugh and smile today... and they did but it wasn't till they had been fed some dinner and I was eating mine. I could hear the laughing and giggling and it made me smile... I even got out the video camera and got some of the fun on film.. then later after they went to bed (easily I might add).. I pulled out the older tapes and watched a few and made notes on the contents so I know what is on the tapes that we have. It was nice to watch them and see how little they were then and to rewatch some of the firsts that we were able to record. I'll also admit that it was tough to watch too since there was some stuff that got recorded while the girls and I were at Mom's for a while. Stuff that I made sure to record for Lee's benefit since he wasn't there to see it first hand.

Still it amazes me that it's been 9 years. My therapist asked how things might be different for me if Dad was still around... it was an interesting question. I really couldn't even answer it even though it's something that I think about quite a bit. For all I know things could have been better but they also could have been much worse... it's probably the one thing that I don't want to know. I guess that's how it works out sometimes.

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.