I just wanted to document that Audrey told her first joke that made sense tonight. I'm sure she heard it somewhere, but neither one if us know where so it was impressive.

Why did the chicken cross the playground?

To get to the other slide! :)

BUBBLES!!

Last Friday, Dad retired from Kroger after 39 years of service!  A couple of guys who have worked for him for years put on an awesome party at Dave & Busters last Tuesday.  They made a video slide show, had pictures everywhere and even put together a scrapbook, in chronological order, that detailed Dad's 39 years with the engineering department.  They invited guys that Dad worked with years ago that were like our second family when we all lived in Florida, they had the hunt club guys, subcontractors and vendors that have been with Kroger forever, and of course the family!  It was really a special night to see how many people that Dad mentored at Kroger - we are proud of you Dad!  :)

Of course, on Friday, as he was getting ready to walk out the door, they called and asked him if he could go out to Texas next month to help with an issue, and on Saturday he awoke to a consulting job offer with an engineering firm that he has worked with.  He's going to do Kroger the favor but told the other folks that he just retired!

This weekend was awesome with temperatures in the mid-60's.  After ballet on Saturday, we went and played outside with a neighbor and then to Tina's for dinner.  The boys dressed Bridget up in this storm trooper (?) mask and gave her a gun.  They must have told her to go and shoot it, because she came into the kitchen saying "Shoot shoot! Shoot shoot!"

On Sunday, we went to a birthday party at a local Gymboree play center.  I've never been there before.  It was geared more towards toddlers and although Audrey had fun, she was a little tall for some of the play centers.  Bridget, on the other hand, thought everything was perfect - she had a blast!  Every time the party coordinator would get out the bubbles, she would throw her arms in the air and run over screaming "BUBBLES!!"

They did a few gymnastic type activities and Bridget kept wanting to get back in line to go again.  After seeing how much fun she had, I am going to sign her up for a mom and toddler gymnastic class today!

Audrey has some new, not-so-fun things that she does lately.  She has learned how to undo the deadbolt on the front door.  When we were getting ready to go play with her friend on Saturday, I was putting Bridget's shoes on and looked up to find Audrey in the middle of the front yard.  She knows how to work the door knob covers, so if she keeps this up,  I may have to install a chain lock high up on the door or something.  She also will undo her seat belt while I'm driving and try to jump into the front seat.  She did it once for Daddy. He pulled over, and let's just say that hopefully she won't be doing it anymore!

She has also developed this fear that we are going to leave our stuff when we go somewhere.  We went to some friends house for dinner a couple of weekends ago and as soon as she heard that we were going to leave, she ran and grabbed both sippy cups and the diaper bag and was standing outside of the bathroom door with them so I wouldn't forget them.  Bridget brought a snack to ballet class on Saturday and as we were driving away, she got all worried and said "Do you have Bridget's snack cup?"  She hasn't lost anything important that I can think of, so I don't know why she has this fear of leaving stuff lately.

Our neighbors gave us a Dora chair that their daughter has outgrown, and you can see how much Bridget likes it - it's the perfect napping chair apparently!

The Southern Lady, The Cowgirl, The Pirate and The Astronaut

Last night the girls went into my closet and came out dressed like this:

Bridget was lifting her hat and yelling "Yee Haw" (she does that no matter what type of hat she has on her head).  I said "Bridget is a cowgirl, what are you Audrey?" 

She said that she was a lady that was going to water her flowers.  She suddenly developed this southern belle accent and asked Bridget "And how are you on this fine, sunny day?"  I have no idea where this came from but it cracked us up!

She brought me a hat and told me that I was a pirate.  Andy got to be an astronaut for a couple of minutes before Audrey decided that Amos should be the astronaut and Andy had to be a pirate with me.  I think we need to sign this girl up for a drama class with her imagination! :)

Sweet Dreams.... Hopefully

I don't know if I've mentioned it here, but Andy took the front off of Bridget's crib a couple of months ago for round two of trying to get her in a toddler bed.  Bedtime is a nightmare!  We have to either rock her or sit on the floor next to the crib until she falls asleep.

Audrey has been wanting to have sleepovers with Bridget a lot lately.  B has slept in Audrey's bed a couple of time but has fallen out of the bed both times, so now they sleep in Bridget's toddler bed with the guard rail.  Even with big sis in the room, Bridget won't stay in bed unless either Andy or I are in the room.

We want to try to break B of her crutch of having us in the room.  Last night, Audrey was in the toddler bed with her and she kept getting up and opening the door.  As soon as she would hear Andy walking down the hall, she would slam the door shut and run back to bed.  At one point, we heard her crying and then Audrey say "It's OK Bridget.  Do you want me to sit in the rocking chair with you?"  A couple minutes later, we heard Audrey singing lullabies to her trying to get her to quit crying and go to sleep.  She is so sweet!

After a while, even Audrey gave up and said that she wanted to go back to her own room and go to sleep (smart kid!).  Andy tried to put Bridget back to bed and finally said "Do you want me to leave your door open?"  She said yes, so he left the door open and she stayed in bed and went to sleep!

All of this time, we have been battling her to stay in her room and the poor thing just wanted her door open!  Tonight will be the real test to see if that helps or if it was just a fluke!

On Saturday, B wanted to come with me and Audrey to ballet class.  The teacher let her sit in the room until more kids showed up and Bridget tried to do the warm up stretches with Audrey and the other little girl.  She was pissed when I went to get her out of the room.

The other mom's thought she was so cute because she kept asking me to pick her up so she could look in the window of the door to the classroom. She had a baby doll with her and at one point, she said "Baby see Audrey dance." I picked her up and she held the baby doll up to the window to see big sis.  At one point, she tried to get in the door and when I told her "No," she lay on the floor and cried "Dance with Audrey!  Wahhh!"  I can't wait until she is old enough for dance class! 

Picture Post - Silly Girls

I have a bunch of cute pictures on my phone of the girls being cute and silly, so be prepared for the onslaught!

This is Audrey the day of the snow storm.  After we all came in, she brought a blanket over for the dogs and hung out with them on their dog bed for a while to keep them warm:

This is how Bridget prefers to keep warm with the dogs:

If they aren't hanging out with the dogs on the dog bed or sofa, they just go hang out in Amos' kennel.  I would like to point out that they went in there willingly and Bridget shut the door herself.  We do not lock our kids in kennels! ;)

Bridget got a hold of Audrey's Rapunzel wig, but she's so stinkin' short that she looked more like Cousin It than a princess!

Audrey got in touch with her Polish roots while wearing Daddy's neck warming thing like a babushka.

Bridget likes to wear marker caps as fancy fingernails.  Needless to say, all of our markers are dried up from the caps being left off!

And, I just thought this picture was adorable!

I brought all of Audrey's old Little People toys up from the basement for Bridget and both girls went nuts over them.  Audrey has daily carnivals and animal parades and Bridget likes to make the Mommy and Daddy Little People kiss (isn't she kind of young for that!).  Audrey gets mad at her because the Mommy Little People is blond, so she calls her Aunt Stephi, but Bridget calls her Mommy.  They get into arguments over the blond lady's name all the time! 

Snow Ice Cream

We are on day 3 of Atlanta being shut down because of the snow.  As I was wrapping up my last post, Andy was out walking the neighborhood with Amos and called and told me to bring the girls down the street to go sledding with some neighbors.  They were about 8 houses down and I knew the kids and I would get cold and tired quickly, so I put them in my car and drove down.

They had a good time sledding down the neighbors driveway, but after about 20 minutes, Bridget started crying and pointing to the car saying "Get in car!"  She and I went home and Andy and Audrey came walking up about 10 minutes later.  Audrey's boot fell off while they were sledding and she freaked out about it and wanted to come home!

On Tuesday, we ventured out to Kroger because we were out of apple juice (gasp!).  The roads weren't horrible, but they were still not very safe.

I have a DOT audit for work on Thursday and when I called to see if it was cancelled, they told me it was not.  I needed to drive into the office today to get some paperwork for it, so Andy drove me there while the girls napped in the car. When we got home, the girls and I made snow ice cream.  First we mixed the milk, sugar and vanilla extract

Then added the snow!

It wasn't super tasty but they ate it and at least we can say we did it!  It gave the girls something to do instead of trashing the playroom.  I had just picked up all of the toys on Saturday.

 

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

We got close to 6 inches of snow last night, which is a big deal in Atlanta!  The girls enjoyed playing outside a little more this time; I don't know if it is because the snow is deeper and more fun or what, but we managed to stay out for about 45 minutes until Audrey dumped a bunch of snow all over her face and down her jacket!

The one who is having the most fun today is Amos.  He keeps wanting to go out in the backyard where he hops through the snow and roots around with his nose.  In this photo, he realized that he could keep his feet warm while Audrey was making snow angels:

 Bridget was better about keeping her mittens on this time, but her little fingers were pink when we came in.  I am going to have to go online and order these kids some real gloves and snow boots since this is the second snow we've had this season.  We might as well be prepard!

Meeting Andrew

The girls and I were finally able to go meet Emma's baby brother Andrew yesterday.  Audrey was so excited all day and kept asking questions about him, like is he going to cry, what does he eat, and does he stand up yet. 

He was drinking a bottle when we got there, and every time Amanda set it down, Bridget would pick it and and bring it back to her saying "Baby bottle."  She told us "I helper!"  After I held him for a few minutes, she decided that it was her turn, so she held her arms out and said "My baby.  I hold it."  Both girls got to take turns holding him and were very sweet with him!

Andy took Audrey to her four year check up this morning.  She passed her blood, urine, vision and hearing tests.  I don't have the exact numbers from him, but he said that she was in the 95th % for height and 75th % for weight.  The doctor said that based on her growth chart, she will probably be around 5'9"!!

I was going through Andy's pictures on his iPhone and found a bunch of cute ones that I had never seen.  I emailed them to myself so I could post them here!

Here are the girls in a tree this fall:

I suppose this is how Andy watches Bridget when I'm not home.

This must have been taken when Bridget was sick a couple of weeks ago because her eyes are all swollen and puffy.

And finally, here is our cute little Christmas puppy!

Happy New Year!

This past Wednesday, we dropped the girls off at Mom's to babysit for the day.  Bridget wouldn't take a nap for Grandma so she passed out on our brief drive to Bucco di Beppo, where she slept like this through most of dinner:

Shortly after she woke up, I had to take Audrey to the bathroom.  When we returned, Bridget started telling me that she wanted to go potty. I didn't have any extra diapers in the restaurant, so I didn't take her and she was pretty upset at me. The next day, Andy was home from work and decided to bring the training potty down from the attic to test out B.  She has since been showing a lot of interest in potty training.  I wasn't planning on starting this process until this spring or early summer, but since she is initiating this, we figured we should roll with it!

She has only gone in the little potty once, but she has had some accidents in the bathroom near the potty and when she pees in her pants, she says "Uh oh!" and gets upset.  I had to run to Walmart to look for some tiny undies.  The smallest they had was 2T-3T, so they are a little big on her, but she likes them.

This morning, Audrey was in the bathroom with her and she was sticking her feet on the training potty.  Bridget kept screaming "No!  My potty!"  Audrey replied with "I know it's your potty Bridget, but not everything is yours!"  Can you tell that MINE is Bridget's favorite phrase? ;)

Look at how big Amos is getting!  This was taken the day after Christmas after everyone came in from playing in the snow.  We were worried that he was going to fall asleep and roll in the fire, so we made him get down.

Last night was probably the first time that I've stayed awake until midnight on New Year's Eve since Audrey was born!  We had our friends Scott and Gabi up and then after they left and we got the kids in bed, we grabbed the monitor and went across the street to celebrate with the neighbors.  Between the wine, champagne and staying up late, I am feeling a little sluggish today and the gray rainy sky isn't helping! 

Here's to hoping you all have a wonderful 2011!