Memorial Weekend Part 2 (finally)

We had a busy rest of the weekend too. On Sunday evening, we headed over to a BBQ at our friend Anna's house and on Memorial Day we went over to grill out at Grandma and Papa's. We were also there to celebrate Grandma Carol's birthday. (I forgot my camera, so all of the pictures were taken with my phone and aren't the best quality)

We got to experience Audrey being pushy while protecting her sister like they told me about at daycare. When we got to Grandma's, Audrey told her "Jack and Ryan can't touch the baby." Ryan went to go see Bridget when he arrived, and Audrey ran over and pushed him back and yelled "No Ryan. Don't touch the baby!"

Grandma bought Audrey (and B eventually) some Disney Princess dress up shoes to keep at her house. Audrey wanted everyone to wear a pair and Jack happily obliged. First, he sported the Belle shoes, but after I told him that the Snow White shoes matched his Super Man shirt, he wanted those. At one point, he chased Audrey around the house crying because she was wearing the Snow White shoes and he wanted them! Papa got some good bribery photos - hopefully he will email them to me soon!

Audrey is a chocolate fanatic and swiped her finger in Grandma's birthday cake probably a half a dozen times before we could cut it. Poor Grandma had a cake with swipes of icing taken out! Here she is helping Grandma blow out the candles.

Tuesday was our 8th wedding anniversary and we dropped the girls off with Grandma Carol and pigged out at Pappadeaux - yummy! When we got back to get the girls, Audrey was watching Cinderella and was really into it. She kept yelling "Cinderella, watch out for the marching band!" ??? I haven't watched the movie all the way through lately, so I must have forgotten about the scene where Cinderella is attacked by a marching band! ;)

And so she doesn't feel left out, here is a picture of Bridget. Shhh...

Memorial Weekend Part 1

Yesterday we met Emma at a family festival at Vickery Village. The festival turned out to be kind of lame, but it had enough to do to keep the girls entertained for a couple of hours. I had to drag Audrey out of the jumpy house.

She sat very still for the face painter. She opted for a lady bug on her arm. She was very excited to show it to Puppy afterwards. When Daddy got home, he accidentally smudged it and for some reason decided just to wipe the whole thing off instead of leaving a smudged bug. She freaked out! I think Daddy learned his lesson!

We stopped to listen to a band play while Bridget had a bottle and the big girls shared a bag of popcorn. Emma dropped some on the ground...

But Audrey took care of it!

I brought the bumbo chair down today and you can see who thinks it's for her:

I got to put Bridget in it for a second, but Audrey kept yelling "No Bridget. It's not for you! Mommy, pick her up!" I love her little feet sticking out!

And, here is one final picture. Telephones... yum!

Two Posts In One Day!

I had to post again today to share a couple of cute stories from daycare.

When I got there today, the director told me that she is so in love with Bridget because she's so cute (tell me something I don't know ;)). There is a little boy in her class that is a week older than her. He and Bridget were laying on a blanket next to each other today and were smiling and laughing at each other for the longest time. Watch out Baby Ethan - you have some competition!

After a certain time of day, they condense all of the kids into a couple of rooms. They bring Audrey down to the baby room so she can hang with Bridget until we get there. Today when I picked them up, the teacher said "Audrey is kind of pushy with the other kids."

Me: "What??"

Her: "If any kids get anywhere near Bridget, she runs over and yells 'No. That's my sister!' And I mean if they are anywhere near the baby!"

Although I don't want my girl to be a pushy bully, I think it's sweet that she's so protective of Bridget. I honestly thought she wouldn't even notice B in the room, but apparently she does!

B Says Buh

Since I'm stuck here at work by myself with not much to do, I have to brag on Audrey! She's been really into the Super Why cartoon on PBS Kids lately and has been repeating the characters when they teach letter sounds.

She has some foam letters that she plays with in the bathtub. Last night, as she was sticking each letter on the wall of the tub, she would say "B says buh, Z says zzz, V says vuh..." I wasn't even prompting her or asking her anything, she was just doing it on her own. I thought it was pretty smart (maybe all 2 1/2 year olds do this?)!

Unfortunately, the bath came to an abrupt end. She started screaming and I looked in the tub and there was a 4 or 5 inch centipede swimming around in the water!! I'm not sure who was more freaked out - me or her! I quickly reached in and undid the drain and it was sucked right down, but she wanted out ASAP!

Before bed, we always talk about what we did that day and at the end, she said "I took a bath with a centipede!" I could hear her talking about centipedes with Puppy after I left the room too!

3 Months Old

Bridget turned three months old yesterday - hard to believe yet I can't remember what it was like before her arrival! Here is her three month shot in comparison with Audrey's (don't worry, I won't compare them on everything throughout their lives. I just like looking at the old pictures of Audrey to see how much alike they do or do not look). I think they look less alike in these pictures. They have one thing in common though - they both have BIG eyes!

It's hard to tell, but Audrey's hair was so long and thick by three months old, she had a little barrette in it. How I wish she would sit still enough for me to put barrettes in it now!

Audrey wanted to wear Andy's motorcycle helmet around the other night. It was so big and heavy on her that she almost fell over backwards!

I have a new little obsession thanks to Tina. I have been stockpiling coupons for a few weeks and on Tuesday, I signed up for The Grocery Game. It helps you to match up store sales with your coupons. I went to Kroger after the girls went to bed and saved $70 on my bill! One of the ideas behind it is to stock up your pantry, so now I really need to clean the old stuff out. Yet another item for my "to do" list!

Moo.

Last Thursday, I got a small glimpse into Tina's life when I watched baby Ethan while his mommy got her American citizenship (excuse the sideways picture - it's saved the right way and blogger keeps flipping it?). Audrey loved having him over! She was in his face all morning going "Hi Ethan! Ethan, where's your mommy? Look Ethan - there's Bridget over there!" Here is a short video of her asking him "What are you doing here?" She's talking really softly, so you may have to turn your volume up. (Don't worry Gabi, she doesn't actually roll on him at the end!)

Luckily I never really had a time where both babies were upset. I don't know why Tina thought it was so hard with twins and a toddler? ;)

Not much else exciting has been going on. Andy is just now finishing up his insane work project. We haven't seen much of him for the past two weeks. He would be gone when we got up and get home around midnight or so. I did have some excitement on Sunday morning when I looked out the window and saw a cow walking down the street! He came through too quickly for me to grab Audrey to see, but I did run outside in my jammies with a baby in one arm and a camera in the other because I'm mature like that!

On Sunday evening we went over to Tina's to look at their pictures from Disney. Audrey was in heaven with all of the Disney toys they brought back! I can't wait until the girls are old enough to go. Ryan and Jack were all about baby Bridget and helped Grandma feed her.

Ryan wanted to hold B and when protective big sis noticed, she ran over and said "Ryan, you need to be gentile with the baby." She gave Bridget a little hug and then ran off to play again!

Here is poor Bridget being decorated with Nemo stickers: These two are from Mother's Day.

I was feeding Bridget and I heard Audrey running up yelling "I've got a moustache!"

Mother's Day Weekend

Mother's Day weekend came and went with a whirl! Andy has been working on this insane work project and is gone for about 12 hours a day, so it was mostly me and the girls all weekend.

I received some presents from the girls on Friday at school. Bridget's teacher made a picture frame with B's picture in it and Audrey made a hand print plate. On Monday, Andy had brought home some other baby's diaper bag, so Bridget's teacher told me "I put Bridget's gift for you in your bag in case Andy picked her up. I didn't want him to bring home some other kid's picture!" Hee hee. She also told me "Bridget sat in a bouncy chair by herself for a long time today. That's unusual for her." Yes, lady, I know that my baby is a little spoiled and likes to be held!

Even though the plate was dated 4/27, they must have used the wrong kind of paint because it was still tacky and I smeared it when we got home, so our first stop during Mother's Day shopping on Saturday was Michaels. I was going to purchase some kind of spray sealer, but we never made it beyond the front display.

They had small pots with plastic Gerber daisies and cute little wooden shapes (bees, suns, ladybugs) sticking in them. Audrey wanted one with each shape and as I tried to walk past, she yelled "No! Get back here! Bad girl - stop!" She then tried to stack about 8 pots on top of Bridget, and when I put them back on the shelf, she had a complete screaming at the top of her lungs temper tantrum. Right about then, Bridget decided that she wanted to finish the bottle that we started before we left. It was SO embarrassing.

We sat outside on a bench so everyone could cool down and then headed to James Avery to buy the grandmas baby shoe charms for their charm bracelets. JA was a madhouse and I didn't want another scene, so I had to look like an a-hole and just give the grandmas an IOU for Mother's Day.

I offered to host everyone to grill out on Sunday afternoon, which was fun except I spent all of Mother's Day cleaning the house! Andy got up and made me breakfast before he left for work, then I cleaned away. Avalanche was sweet enough to bring me a large, dead mockingbird as a gift (or maybe it was for his mother, but she never saw it).

This is Audrey's Mom "tattoo" that Daddy drew on

Audrey and Ian cooked Mother's Day dinner in Audrey's kitchen:


Poor B woke me up in the middle of the night on Sunday because she was coughing and then she's been sneezy & snotty ever since. Daycare reported that she was gassy, sneezy and cranky all day yesterday - they probably cringe when they see poor high-maintenance Bridget coming! I was up a lot with her last night between her coughing, sneezing and having screamy painful gas (somehow Andy slept through all of it). I'm really hoping Audrey naps today so I can too. She hasn't napped for me in a week. Please don't phase out nap time Audrey!!

Portrait of Bridget

My nephews stopped by for a visit on Tuesday and Tyler was drawing on a white board that Andy brought home from work. Tina asked him to draw a picture of Bridget and he took his job very seriously. He kept looking at her, then working on his drawing. I think it looks just like her, don't you?

Since there isn't much going on, I am stealing inspiration from Amanda's blog and sharing some "Audrey-isms" with you.

• She'll call Bridget "little fella" or "big boy," so I was trying to explain boys vs. girls to her. I told her that she was a girl and she said "No, I'm not a girl. I have brown hair." ??
• During nap time: "Audrey, I need you to take a nap so Mommy can go shower." "You can't shower - you have clothes on!" She had a point (kind of)!
• Roscoe was at his water dish and I asked him if he was thirsty, so she went up to him and said "Are you thirsty buddy? Are you thirsty? Do you want some orange jello?" I'm sure he did, but I'm not sure how that was going to solve his problem! It was especially random because I have no idea when the last time she had orange jello was, but it was on her mind.
• Our baby swing died (it was from waaay back when Tyler was a baby, and I think Audrey helped kill it off), so I put out a note on Facebook to see if anyone had one I could borrow. My neighbor had one, so Audrey and I picked it up on Monday night. It has Jack and Jill dolls hanging over it, and Audrey took them off and made Jill start beating up Jack. She was yelling "I'm a girl. I smash boys. SMASH!!" Andy was so proud!
  

Tadpoles and Chickens

I was super excited last week because our tadpole finally got his front legs and was well on his way to becoming a full frog. Unfortunately for him, those legs led to his demise - the turtle caught him by one and made his tank mate his lunch! Poor Grandma Mary was here watching the girls on Friday and had to witness the whole thing. I couldn't believe that the turtle could take down that huge tadpole, plus they lived together for a couple of weeks, so I figured they were buddies. Poor Tad.

The girls had a busy day yesterday. We stopped by to see Audrey's buddy Emma first. Her folks were having a Cinco de Mayo party and Audrey had fun playing with Emma's puzzles and picking flowers off of Amanda's porch plant (sorry Amanda!). Afterwards, we went to see Bridget's buddy Ethan. They had a blast hanging out together! ;)

His mommy and daddy have pet chickens in the backyard and they were a big hit with Audrey! I thought she might be scared of them, but she ran right out and started chasing them. Here is one hiding from her behind a bush:

She kept saying "Where did my friends go? Where are my chickens?"

Here she is trying to look in the coop for eggs (there was one in there).

I'm sure if our neighborhood covenants would allow it (and our dogs), Audrey would love to have pet chickens of her own!