Pictures, enjoy!

Cute little dress that I love, on baby I love even more.

Two cuties asleep in the car.

Showing off her tongue

So sweet!

I can't get enough of this smile!  So nice to see!

Zonked out on the couch.

Fake sleeping on the playground at preschool when I wouldn't let her swing anymore.

The funniest kid!

My Mother's Day card from Karina; made at preschool.  I hope you can read it.  It made me cry all the way home.

Chillin'

Two fancy dressed up ladies.

Friendly Creatures

There were some ducks out front the other day.  They were just waddling around, happy as could be.  I got some pictures of them from the window in the house, so I didn't scare them away.  They were just hanging out over in our neighbor's driveway.  I wonder if they have a nest nearby (we live close to a marshy area), and if we might see babies someday!

 Then, the other day I took Karina to the local park.  Suddenly, this large green butterfly-looking insect flew across the playground and landed in a tree.  I realized it was probably a luna moth.  I'm pretty sure that's what it is.  Can you see it?  I can't believe I got this picture, as I was holding Elena, the sun was in my eyes, and I had a really hard time finding him in the tree!

Elena's 4 month checkup

We went to the pediatrician's today and Elena weighs 15.4 lbs.  She's over 24 inches long.  She is smaller than I expected.  She feels so heavy, I thought she weighed at least 16 or 17 pounds.  So I was pretty surprised when she didn't.  Her weight puts her somewhere around the 75th-90th percentile, but her height is nowhere near that.  It's more like the 50th.  This is a lot like what Karina did when she was little. She has now settled right into the 50th percentile, and I'm totally fine with that. 

Elena has a little cold again, and got some icky shots.  She's been sleeping a lot today so I hope the night isn't awful.  I haven't slept well the last few nights and I really need a good night's sleep tonight!

Karina has the start of an ear infection so she's on antibiotics.  But she has no fever so I'm thankful for that. 

Overall it was a good visit.  Elena is doing great and even laughed at Dr. B! 

After the visit we stopped at a small farmer's market that goes on in this little square on Wednesdays only and browsed some stuff.  We got some chocolate cake pops that were delicious! 

Then we ate at Wendy's as a treat and overall just had a really good day.

The Hunger Games movie

Yay, I finally saw it!  I read the book after reading a review of it over at Second Time Around.  I was able to read the whole first chapter free on the Barnes and Noble website, and I was hooked.  The movie was well done, I thought, with the inevitable changes made for the sake of turning a book into a movie.  They simply can't fit it all in.  Overall, definitely worth seeing, although there were a couple areas I would have liked to see them be a little more detailed about or explain a little better.  Her attitude is one--very well explained in the book, and kind of glossed over in the movie.  You're just kind of expected to know how she's behaving and how that is affecting others.  (I don't want to give anything away)  And there's a relationship between two characters that kind of changes out of the blue without much explanation of what is going on.  One minute it's one way, and the next minute it has changed.  Again, I don't want to give stuff away.  But overall, no complaints.  I thought it was really good, moved fast, kept my attention, startled me a few times, and even made me cry.  If you like action-adventure, dystopian (I sure hope I spelled that right) type stories, this one is good.  And I definitely recommend the book.

I got a double stroller!

I did, I got one.  Now, I know I'm not a review blog, but sometimes I buy something with my own money and I want to tell you about it.  Here is a case of that.  I bought the Graco Ready 2 Grow double stroller in green and black (because that's what the store had.  I would have preferred brown and blue, but it's okay).  So far I like it a lot.  It didn't feel like pushing a train down the aisle of the store, and Karina said the seat was fine.

We tested it out on a walk this evening, with Karina riding in the front seat (where she would lie down if we were somewhere like a water park or amusement park) and Elena in the infant carrier in the jump seat area.  Now, I have a Britax infant carrier, and it is not compatible with this stroller.  However, I put her in it anyway (NOTE:  I do not recommend doing anything the manufacturers say not to.  It could be bad.  Just because I tell you I did it, doesn't mean I think that you should.  I don't.  So don't.) and it worked out fine.  The carrier was a little loose, which is something I wasn't too happy about, but it didn't feel like it was going to leap out or anything.  I do have a Graco infant seat and if I can convince my dear husband to get it out of our garage then I will probably use that with the stroller instead.  But, it's nice to know that I can use the Britax if I am so inclined.  The front with Karina in it didn't pull and didn't feel too heavy except when we went over driveways with the ramps.  Then it did tend to pull pretty strongly down hill, but any double is going to do that with the heavier child up front.  So that wasn't anything against the stroller.

I don't like the parent tray but I can live with it.  The cupholder area seems much too shallow and flimsy, but again, not anything I wouldn't buy this over.  I also don't like the basket.  It is very hard to get to and there's no way my diaper bag will fit in it, but again, the positives of this stroller outweigh these two negatives for me right now.  I am going to get some stroller hooks to hang my bag from when necessary, and most of the time I think it will fit on the standing platform.

I folded it up and it's tall, almost as tall as me.  But I can remove the two canopies (really only need to remove one) and the child tray, and it will fit in the trunk of my car just fine.  Most of the time I won't have to do that as I'm planning to keep the stroller at home most of the time.  Again, good to know though for when we go places like the water park this summer (I can't wait!) and the amusement park.

Overall, I am very happy with the stroller.  The small negatives (basket and parent tray) are things that are so easy to find solutions for that they don't really bother me.  The positives (configurations, ease of use, super easy folding and unfolding, and size compared to other double sit n stand strollers) are big deals to me.

So, in my personal opinion, if you are in the market for a double stroller, especially one that will convert to a sit n stand and can carry children up to 50 pounds (that's roughly a 7 year old, by the way; I checked online), I recommend this one.

Hey and nobody paid me to say any of this.  I bought the stroller all by myself and these are my opinions and nobody else's.  Someone else might think differently.  

Chef salad

When I was a kid, I remember my mom making us what she called a Chef Salad.  It was your basic salad:  lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers.  Into that she added cheese and bologna (I know some of you probably hate bologna, but I loooove it).  I used to eat each part of the salad separately (just as I did with pretty much everything else I ate, including M&Ms, which I ate by color--no joke.  If you didn't know, I am a very, very picky eater), but the other day I started trying to think of something else to eat for dinner.  I thought about Mom's chef salads, and remembered I had some ham and turkey in the fridge.  Of course I had none of the salad stuff so I packed up the entire family and we went to the grocery store.  I got my salad stuff, went home and made my salad.  It turned out the ham and turkey had gone a little bad, just barely, but I don't take chances, so bologna it was.  It was like heaven--it was so delicious.  I've been eating them more lately, too.  I intend to switch out the bologna for something healthier, but for now I'm just enjoying eating something different.  And the best part?  I don't eat it like I did when I was a kid, and it's better!  Oh, the things I didn't know when I was little. 

The next night I used the salad stuff and made tacos.  They were great, too, and did you know you can get these packs of 12 tacos (6 soft and 6 hard) with sauce and seasoning for less than $2??  All you really need is whatever you want to put in it!  We had ground beef, cheese, lettuce, and some tomato.  I don't put tomato in mine, but my brother does, and he had some, too. 

I was so proud of myself for not only making but also eating two new meals.  I am really trying to eat a little better and not eat so much junk because when I look in the mirror, ick, flab city.  It's bugging me.  I'm not one to give up my sweets, so something else had to change.  I'm not good with change (among many other things) but I am going to eat better (bologna has to be switched up for something else in my salads, or just left out, which is probably what will happen) and I've already been exercising more now that I have the double stroller.  I took both girls for a very brisk walk this morning and it felt so good to just move!

Someone's having a baby....and it's not me!

No, no, it's not me.  It's someone dear to me but I can't tell you who it is yet.  Sorry!  But finding out she's pregnant with her first baby has made me start thinking about baby advice.  Yes, the stuff everyone loves to give and no one really wants to hear after the first 1,000 people have offered theirs.  Since I try really hard not to do that to people, and to only offer advice when asked, but I still feel the burning desire to share what I've learned, I figured I'd do a little post on some of the best stuff I've learned. 

1. You can't hold your baby too much, but it's also okay to put her down.  Really.  I held Karina probably 20 hours a day until I started going crazy, but I hated putting her down.  I knew it was okay to hold her a lot (you're basically holding them 24/7 when they're in your body, so even if you hold them the whole time you're awake, you've still reduced how much you're holding them) but I didn't know how it was okay to put her down.  With Elena, I've learned.  I have to put her down if I want to get anything done.  Or if Karina needs to potty, spills her drink, makes any kind of mess, wants to "help" me with something, or wants to play.  If I want to do any of these things, I have to put her down.  I hold her a lot less than I held Karina.  But she's okay.  And I am, too.

2. There is so much baby gear out there, it's easy to be overwhelmed.  When shopping for this stuff, think about a couple of things.  What is it for?  How long will it be used?  Is it something I want to use?  And consider that your baby may not like it.  Some babies love swings and others hate them.  You might be plopping down a couple hundred dollars on something that never gets used.  Consider consignment shops if you're worried about this.  I have a Boppy pillow, something I thought I would use all the time.  I almost never use it.  However, many moms use theirs a lot.  I just didn't.  So you have to think about you, not just all these other moms. 

3. Babies cry because they want something.  They are hungry, dirty, wet, cold, hot, cranky, in pain, tired, under or overstimulated, and pretty much everything else they can't put into words.  When the baby cries uncontrollably, it's okay if you can't figure out what's wrong every time.  Holding your baby lets her know that you are always going to be there to comfort her.  However, every human mother has her limit.  When you reach it, put your baby down in a safe place, like the crib, and go take a break.  You are human.  No one expects you to be able to withstand that kind of crying forever.  It is so hard, because you want to help your baby and you can't, and nothing works, so there's the additional stress of not being able to 'fix' it on top of the crying itself.  Take a break. 

4. Take too many pictures.  You will never be sorry or regret it.  You will, however, be sorry if you don't take enough.  And get infant pictures done, please.  Take the baby somewhere if you don't do the (expensive) hospital ones.  But do it.  You won't be sorry later.  (Like I am for not doing them with Karina.  Arg...)

5. Don't freak out over your body.  It's going to be different.  Oh yeah, way different.  That's okay.  Your body just did something amazing.  It manufactured a whole new human person and for many of you, pushed that (rather large, let's face it) human person out into the world.  Yeah, you did that.  And it took almost a year for your body to change to accommodate that person, it's not going back to its old self overnight.  Or in a month.  Don't pay any attention to those celebrities.  And don't be hard on yourself.  It takes time. 

So there you go.  A bunch of advice from some random lady who thinks she knows everything.  No, I don't really know everything.  These are just a few things I learned for myself, and if they help someone else out, great!  If not, that's okay too.  Because the bottom line is, every new mom is going to figure things out for herself, no matter how many people offer her advice, or how many articles or blog posts she reads.  But I feel better for sharing it!

Didn't forget about Elena

 I didn't forget my littlest one.  She's just hard to get really good shots of that don't look exactly like every other picture of her!  She's growing and getting to have more of a personality.  It's fun watching her kick her legs.  She can poke her eye with her toe!  When I put her on her changing table, which is her favorite place to be, she lifts and kicks her legs and laughs and smiles.  She'll do this for long minutes at a time.  It's pretty funny.  And, oh, make her naked baby and she's ecstatic!

 A little friend visited us today.  Please don't judge my yard.  My husband hates mowing, won't do it often enough, and won't let me hire people to do it.  He says he needs the exercise!  He's a goof.  But isn't this little bunny cute?  We have what I think is a family of three (I'm sure the other 100 are elsewhere) who are hanging out in our yard lately.  Today, they were just under the tree in the back yard, sitting around like they had nothing else to do.  One morning when it was raining, one was sitting right under one of Karina's swings on her swingset.  I guess he wasn't getting rained on there!

 And here is my sweet girl and my other sweet girl.  Karina loves "baby Elena" as she calls her.  She loves to touch her feet especially.  Love these girls!!!

Preschool Fun

 Karina loves preschool.  The other day I was the class helper, so I got a few pictures of her on the playground with her friends.  She's in the pink jacket.  This thing is like a four-way teeter-totter.  Below, she's hiding out doing some secret friend things with her friend M. 

 Today was the preschool's Week of the Young Child Stuffed Animal Parade.  And there's good old Lambkin.  He did have a new dress to wear (yes, Lambkin is a boy, but he wears dresses.  We're all cool with that), but she must have decided he didn't need it.  She laughs and says he's a lamb and he doesn't wear clothes, but she insisted he have it.  Silly girl. 

Just a hello and update with pics

We are all doing just fine around here, it's just hard to find time to write up a post.  I finally uploaded some pictures today while Karina napped and Elena, finally, also napped.  She did not want to go to sleep!

 Here you go, my little goofball. I can't resist this child.  She is wearing her new summer princess jammies (she has three winter ones with long sleeves, so I was excited to find this one for a good deal with short sleeves.  The girl was going to wear those other ones no matter how hot it got!) and hanging out with Lambkin.

 Below, here she is helping her daddy water our tree.  When our neighbors across the street and down a ways cut down their tree (there has been a rash of people cutting down trees in our neighborhood--I don't get it), we decided to plant some new ones of our own.  This one is doing well.  Karina and I came home from church and she didn't want to change.  Okay.  The bucket is how Bill waters them.  He fills it so he doesn't overwater and kill them (like he did our last one, it was so sad).  There's a hole in the bottom of the bucket and it drains out slowly.

 And what is in the bucket?  Why, none other than Rod "Torque" Redline, Grem, and Acer!  (Rod is blue, Grem is orange, and Acer is greenish-yellow)  They are her favorite cars from Cars 2 and Grem and Acer go all over with her all the time.  She sleeps with them.

 I have been trying forever to find my old Barbies so I could share the clothes with Karina for her princess dolls, and I finally found them.  See, I had a ton.  Some of the dolls here are Karina's princesses, but most of the clothes were mine and at least half the dolls you can see.

 I had almost forgotten to take a picture of Karina in her beautiful dress before she changed, so the bow is untied, but she still looks cute.  This was the day we had Elena baptized. 

Just trying my best to keep up with things a little on here.  It's hard with two kids.  Right now I am dying to sew some stuff and I just can't find the time.  And the machine wakes Elena up unless she's sound asleep or downstairs!

Easter

I hope you all had a lovely Easter (if you celebrate).  We did.  I'm sorry Karina made such a wonky face in the group picture.  Believe it or not, that was the best one I have from my camera.  I may or may not see the ones Bill took for a while.  It takes him months and months to upload his pictures, so I always try to get him to take ones with mine too.  Anyway, he took four, and this was the best.  Silly girl!  Elena is actually smiling in a bunch of these.  The striped dress is her Easter dress, and the white onesie is what I put her in after church.  On Karina's first Easter, she had this gorgeous dress that was supposed to be a Christmas one, but was clearanced at JCPenney's. It was creamy white with silver all over it and super poofy.  Oh it was gorgeous.  Then I had this white onesie with eyelet trim at the shoulders and it was so pretty, so I was happy when I found this similar onesie at Gymboree for Elena a while back.  I remembered it Easter after church and put it on her. 

The Easter Bunny came to our house and hid eggs in the front yard.  Normally he would have left them in the house, but since our house is, um, a little messy and the weather was nice, he hid them outside.  She was very excited that he gave her Rapunzel socks in one of the eggs.  She kept saying, "He really knows what I like!" and had to wear them that very day.  At my mom's house, the Easter Bunny's helper hid some mini My Little Ponies for her to find.  And at church, she found about 25 eggs hidden out on the playground.  She was running all over.  The eggs aren't really hidden, they're just everywhere all over the ground and the playground equipment.  But the kids will run past some, pick up others, and then go back around.  I have no idea how they determine which ones to pick up and which to leave, but it's pretty funny to watch.  She really wanted to stay and play on the playground afterwards, but I was hot and hungry and she was in her fancy dress so I made her go inside to the social hall so we could eat.  Now I have to take her back one of these days to play there.  This girl loves a playground!

Hope you all enjoy the pictures!  Oh, and just quick, nobody paid me to have the opinions about brands I mentioned, and they never do.  It's all me.  And if you have my button on your blog, don't forget that Jennie made me a beautiful new one, so it would be awesome if you would be kind enough to switch them out.  Thanks!

Several things, with pictures

 Over the weekend, Karina went to her friend's birthday party.  It was at a place called My Gym, and she had the best time!  Look at my little big girl swinging on the uneven bars!

She even got to go on the zip line they had!  All the kids got to do it. One helper picked them up and the other lady held on as they zoomed across the room!  While the kids were running around, I was thinking of a crazy comedy sketch, just waiting for them to start dropping like flies!  But they just ran and ran and Karina was hysterical.  She'd stop suddenly, with this very serious face, turn, and then run another way!

 I was also the helper at preschool on Tuesday.  I love this shot of Karina running on the playground.  You might be able to tell, I'm not sure, but she is singing a song from "Tangled".  It's the one where Rapunzel finally comes out of her tower and she's singing about "running and racing" or something like that. 

 Here she is talking to her friend and asking which colors she wanted to use.

And here she is painting with blue and yellow (which are supposed to make green, but the powdered paints don't work so well).  She is very serious and is wearing, under the blue smock, her pink fairy outfit from the dress-up corner.  It's her favorite. 

And finally, for your most jolly viewing pleasure, I present to you my brother.  I'm not sure if he's being Dracula or what, but he's wearing Karina's purple Super Fairy cape.  Yeah.  That's my brother.  You see why I like him, right? 

Hope you all had a great week!  I'll be posting Easter pics later, woohoo!

Good News from Dr. for Elena

Woo-hoo, big GI doctor's appointment is over for Elena!  Good news all around, she's healthy and growing.  Her weight and height are all good.  She didn't have to have anything done to her that was horrible, he just examined her.  We are changing up how she gets her Zantac first, by giving it three times a day instead of twice a day.  We will also have another medication that we may or may not give depending on how she reacts to the first change in meds.  This would be something to make her less uncomfortable when she does her doodles.  He said the crying/screaming is most likely because she just doesn't like to poop.  Well, okay.  He said if it was uncomfortable or painful before, then she has the physical memory of that and cries every time now.  So we'll see if changing the meds works and if not we can add the other, and we can email him with questions!!  That is so awesome. 

So, overall, healthy baby!!!!  He said she will likely just grow out of it.  Thank goodness.  I hope that happens soon!  :-)

Thanks for any well wishes you may have sent us!

A funny memory

Tonight while scrolling through Facebook, a friend shared a story about something her kids did in their yard.  I was reminded of this story from back when I was teaching third grade.  I hope I haven't shared this story with you before, because it is one of my favorites.  If I did, well, sorry.  You can just stop reading.  But if I haven't shared it, it's pretty funny, I think!

One particular year, I had this fantastic class.  I mean, they were the best kids.  I could not have hand-picked a better class.  We had a new principal that year, and the transition was kind of rough (anyone coming after our beloved Mr. Thomas was going to have a rough time; no one could compare to what we thought of him).  But I had these kids.  Oh, how I loved them!  Nice, sweet, funny, compassionate, patient, hard workers--just the best. 

One day, we're out at the playground for recess.  Suddenly, a girl comes running up to me and says, "Miss B!  Johnny just peed on the tree!!"  What?  "Johnny!" I yell, "Come here!"  He comes right over, and inside I'm thinking there's no way, the girl is mistaken, this is a joke.  He comes over and I whisper to him, "Did you just pee on the tree?"  He immediately replies, "Yes".  I suppress laughter and ask, "Why did you do that?" Johnny says, "Well, Sam did it, too."  "Sam! Come here!"  Sam comes over, I ask him, and he immediately answers, yes, he peed on the tree.  At this point, me and my fellow teachers are trying desperately not to laugh because I'm sorry, this is funny.  These boys just peed on a tree on the playground at recess while at least three entire classes are outside playing!  However, some kids saw, and I can't have kids going home telling parents that kids pee on the tree and don't get in trouble.  So I steel myself and tell the boys that while I'm not angry at them, what they did was very inappropriate and they will have to see the principal (I have to cover all my bases and protect myself as well).  It was awful.  I really wasn't mad at them, I didn't even really care that much, because I knew that with these boys, I could have just told them, hey you don't do that, and they wouldn't have done it again.  They were just being boys.  But it's school.  Sigh. 

We go inside, Johnny is crying, Sam is stone-faced.  I'm miserable, but still laughing inside.  I sit them in the office and go find the principal. She's eating with the assistant principal in the cafeteria, which is now empty.  I dread telling her, but tell her I do.  The AP, Mrs. Carter, starts laughing immediately, but Miss Bane just keeps this very straight face and starts asking me about it.  I told her how honest they both were, what good kids they are, and inside I'm hoping she won't suspend them.  She didn't.  It was one of the strangest things that ever happened during my teaching career.

I did talk to the parents of both boys, and we had a good laugh over it as well.  I was on good terms with most of the parents that year, too.  They were good parents (except one who we'll discuss some other time.  She wasn't really a parent, anyway.) (Boy, I do get off-track quite easily, don't I?  Oh well!)

These boys were just so great, though.  They remained (and do to this day) some of my favorite students of all times.  Of course, all names in this story have been changed.  

Thinking about this class, these boys, all these kids, just really warms my heart.  I simply can't express to you how great they were that year.  I will never, for as long as I live, forget these kids. 

Pictures and Happy Birthday to my Dad

 My mom had this building set, where you can use the blocks to make different styles of houses and buildings.  But Karina looked at it and saw a playground.  So that's what she and Mom made. 

Just flashing a smile. 

Today is my dad's birthday.  It should have been yesterday, he's such a prankster and a goofball!  It always sneaks up on me coming as it does at the beginning of the month.  I called him already and got voicemail so now I have to try to remember later today and try again.  Hopefully I will remember.  With chaos as our newest houseguest, remembering is hard, but just in case:  Happy Birthday, Daddy!!!