Christmas 2010

As usual, we spent Christmas Eve with the Hoffman side of the family.  Bridget drooled red M&M dye all over her dress before I could get a picture, Audrey doesn't sit still, and then my camera died, so there aren't a ton of photos from Grandma and Papa's!

Bridget mostly just snacked on cookies and candy that Grandma had out, so she was wound up when we got home!  She had slept in Audrey's bed with her the night before, so we thought she may go to sleep better with Audrey again.  At about 9:30ish, I was in the room with them and told Bridget that if she was still up when Santa came by, he would just bypass our house.  Audrey grabbed Bridget around the waist and said "Lay down Bridget!"  When she wouldn't stay down, Audrey said "Please get Bridget out of here!"  She wanted to go to sleep for Santa and didn't want Bridget to ruin everything!

I love this photo of the girls waiting to go see if Santa came:

They had a good time opening gifts.  Bridget made sure to get every piece of tape off of the toy, then demanded "Open it!"  It started snowing pretty early in the morning and it snowed all day!  This was the first white Christmas in Atlanta since 1882 and it really made the day special!

We spent the afternoon and evening with the Farbotko side of the family.  Audrey got Hungry Hungry Hippo from the Bryant's and I loved watching the kids play it because I remember playing it when I was little.  Ian would grab the balls out of Audrey's side, put them in his and yell "I won!"  :)   Bridget has her little tongue out in determination in this photo!

On Sunday, we got the girls all dressed to go play in the snow.  The dogs thought it was great, but my little Southern girls didn't care much for the snow.  Bridget refused to leave her mittens on, so after about 5 minutes, she came up to me crying "Go in house! Hands cold!"  Not long after I got all of her winter gear off, Audrey came in too.  So much for the excitement of the snow!

Here is a link to the rest of our Christmas pictures: share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AZM3DRozaNGk8

Sickies

I mentioned in the last post that Audrey was getting a cold - it hit poor Bridget much harder.  She was acting okay, but this is how she looked all day Monday and Tuesday:

It looks like she was crying, but her eyes were just red and super watery and she had the pinkest cheeks.  Even though she looked like crap, we still went over to decorate cookies for Santa with the boys.  I forgot my camera and the only picture I took was the one below.  We looked down at something moving on the table and this poor ladybug was walking along, covered in flour!  The kids thought it was so funny and kept trying to put sprinkles and cookie decor on the poor guy until Tina finally rescued him and washed him off in the sink.  :)

I have been battling their little cold but have been able to keep most of it away with sinus tabs and Advil, so let's hope we are all healthy for Santa.  It is forecasted that we are going to have snow on Christmas Day - how exciting!

One last picture:  only my kid would have Ariel and a T-Rex holding a conversation about Ariel's mommy:

Weekend Guest

We had a little visitor spend the weekend with us.  I was a little worried about how Ethan, who is 2 weeks younger than Bridget, would adjust to staying at a new place, but it didn't seem to phase him at all!  The girls had a blast playing with him.  Audrey was particularly sweet - at one point on Saturday she gave him a big hug and said "I love you!"  She also said that she wanted him to be her little brother or her cousin (because she doesn't have enough boy cousins I suppose!).  Here she is picking him up and showing him ornaments on the tree:

She also let him see her iPod:

I thought he would a little clingier with me since I am a Momma, but he stuck by Andy's side the whole weekend!

Grandma Mary came to watch Audrey's final ballet class of the session on Saturday and then stopped by the house to eat lunch with us.  I will post pictures whenever I get them off of the camera.  When she left, Audrey made sure she also gave Ethan a hug and kiss!

Audrey and I then had to go to her boyfriend Andrew's birthday party.  When I tried to get her to sign his card, she said that she needed to draw him a snowman.  :)

About an hour and a half into the party, she started holding her tummy and coughing that seal-like croup cough, so we headed home before pizza and cake.  Andy set up the little tent in the living room for the babies and I had Audrey sleep with me.  The poor thing was up with coughing fits every hour or so but seemed to be feeling better in the morning.

We are headed over to make cookies for Santa with the boys this evening, so there will me lots of cute pictures soon!

Big Girls

I am slowly working on thank you notes from Audrey's birthday party.  I want her to sign her name to the notes.  The first one went well, even though it took up the whole card.  :)

On the second note, she wanted to write Bridget's name instead of her name.  She wrote a B, then did a big A on top of the note card with some scribbles.  On the third card, she decided that she wanted to draw a rainbow for Andrew and by the fourth, it was just some more scribble, so we stopped there for the night!

Audrey was very excited to bring brownies to daycare for her birthday on Tuesday.  For her birthday dinner, she wanted me to go pick up Chik-fil-A and bring it home. Luckily for me, Tuesday's are free kids meal nights at our local restaurant! :)

Over the weekend, she decided that she did not want to wear Pull Ups overnight anymore.  The first two nights went well, but the next two did not.  I have been doing lots of laundry!

Andy decided to try round two of putting Bridget in a toddler bed this week.  He only has to stay in her room with her for about 30 minutes before she falls asleep, but she wakes up in the middle of the night and comes down the hall crying every night.  I tried to put her to bed last night and she kept talking and then she just got up, went to the door and said "bye bye Mommy" and took off!  Last night, Andy ended up dragging his sleeping bag in there and he slept on her floor for half the night to keep her in her room.  He thinks she is rolling out of bed in her sleep and then getting upset.  Andy has to work late tonight so I am on my own getting them to bed, so wish me luck!

Birthdays!

We had such a fun weekend!  The festivities kicked off on Friday when I decided that although Audrey's long hair is beautiful, it is only beautiful for about three minutes after you brush it, then it looks like a knotted train wreck.  Bridget needed her bangs cut as well - the last time I tried to stick a barrette in her hair, she came up to me about 10 minutes later with the barrette in her hand.  She said "NO IN HAIR!" and slammed the barrette on the table!  So after work, I scooped up the girls and Grandma Mary and went and had about 5 inches cut off of Audrey's hair!  It looks so much better and is much easier to manage!

Grandma bought some rainbow colored nail polishes at the beauty salon, so I did Audrey's fingers and toes before bed.

After ballet on Saturday, we went straight over to Tyler's Indiana Jones themed 7th birthday party.  Tina had the basement all decked out and a bunch of clever games that went along with the movie.  Audrey was still playing with her "Indian Jones" treasure bag when we got home.

We finally got around to decorating our first real Christmas tree.  This is the first time that Audrey has been really into the holidays, and she loved helping put the ornaments on.  We have every ornament we own on the tree and the bottom branches are sagging from Audrey's decorating.  She kept saying "We are making the tree SO pretty!"  I didn't have the heart to fix her branches, so if you see a goofy looking tree in our pictures, know it was done out of love!

I was worried about Bridget and Amos around the tree, but Audrey is the one constantly rearranging the ornaments and taking them off to use as play figurines!  Bridget hasn't even touched anything and Amos only grabs the ornaments that fall or that Audrey has on the couch or table.

Yesterday was Audrey's birthday party at Monkey Joe's.  This was the first time that she has seen her classmates outside of daycare and she was SO excited!  We had about 13 kids total and everyone had a blast!

Audrey got a little weirded-out while everyone was singing Happy Birthday to her.  She made this face the whole time:

This little guy is her friend Andrew from daycare.  She talks about him all the time and I think he likes her too!  They hung out a lot at the party.  He came up to me at one point and I thought he was looking for his mom.  He said "No, I'm looking for Audrey.  She keeps getting away from me!"

We brought the gifts home to open with the family and between the Disney Princess stuff, Zhu Zhu pets and her very own iPod touch, she was in heaven.  She went to bed last night with a stuffed Tinkerbell, Rapunzel and her horse and 4 Zhu Zhu pets!

I have a ton of pictures to load on shutterfly and will post the link when I'm done.  I can't believe my baby is going to be four tomorrow!!

Rolling Stones

The week before Thanksgiving,  I started having a little bit of abdominal pain.  I attributed it to the stress of hosting Thanksgiving, plus Audrey's birthday and the holidays coming up.  Finally, the Tuesday before Turkey Day,  I went to the doctor.  The PA I saw told me that she thought I had a UTI and gave me some antibiotics to go ahead and start while we wait for the test results over the holiday weekend.

Monday rolled around and she emails me at 5 pm saying that I don't have a UTI, so to come back to the office.  I made an appointment with a doctor, who after listening to my complaints and feeling around on my belly, referred me to go get a CT scan. 

I had that done on Thursday and was a nervous wreck waiting until Friday afternoon to get my test result.  I was on Google all day looking stuff up and convincing myself that I had all of these terrible diseases, even though my blood work turned out perfect.

So... long story short,  I have 4 kidney stones, 2 in each kidney.  They aren't obstructing anything and they are not too big, so they want me to pass them on my own.  Since they are still in my kidneys and not in the urethra yet, the pain isn't too bad, but as I chug down glass after glass of water, I anticipate the pain of them working their way out.  Ouch!!

In kid news, Audrey's daycare director gave me a big compliment on her yesterday.  A's teacher had to leave for a couple of hours for a doctor's appointment, so they shuffled the kids around to different class.  Audrey ended up in the Pre-K class and the teacher said that she was so well behaved and polite and played nicely with the kids in the class that she wished she had 20 Audrey's in her class!

I asked Bridget's teacher if she talks much at school since she can be a chatterbox at home, and she said that the only time B talks is when she wants a baby doll or when she needs a diaper change.  She said that B comes up to her and says "I wet."  I wish she would do that at home!

I am running on four hours of sleep today.  Between 9 and 11 last night, Audrey threw up three times and had a nasty poopy in her pull up while she was asleep.  Just as I got settled to bed, Bridget woke up and barfed all over me while I was trying to rock her back to sleep.  She didn't totally fall back asleep until about 3 and then Amos woke us up at 7.  Neither one had a fever, so I thought maybe they ate something bad.  They were both a little tired and clingy today and Audrey has been passed out on the couch now for almost 3 hours, which is amazing since she never naps.

Next weekend is Audrey's birthday party (and Tyler's), so let's hope we are all healthy and stone free by then!