Reese’s First Haircut

So I have been wanting to get Reese’s hair cut/trimmed for a few months now. When she falls asleep she plays with her hair so she has created some dead ends that need to trimmed off and her hair has grown in at odd lengths. I was hoping to go to one of those fun places for kids that the chairs are an airplane and they give you a certificate, etc. like I did for Brady just last March:

 

 

Well, there is not one of these kids’ haircut places in Pensacola. I looked in neighboring towns, no luck. The closest one was 1.5 hours away and I thought that was silly for a haircut. Well, tonight Brady slept through dinner and I looked and Reese and got an impulsive inspiration.

So her first haircut will not be done in a stylish chair, nor will she have a fancy certificate afterwards. However, her stylist loves her far more then any one I would have found else where.

The finished product! (I styled it to be a mohawk)

Who am I to make the decision?

I have always lived by the philosophy I would rather live to be 65 and happy then 80 and unhappy and worried. Thus I am not one that tends to worry as much about if I put my sunscreen on every time I go out into the sun, or if I should be microwaving in plastic containers, or if organic foods are best for me, or the battle of antibacterial vs. regular soap and which one builds worse germs, etc. I believe that is I just don’t worry about all this stuff, that yes my life may be cut short, but the years I do live will be spent not worry about the small stuff. Just my personal approach to life and I know that none of you will be surprised if you know a little piece of my personality…

 

A family member of mine had an article posted on their Facebook page talking about how bad sunscreen is for you and all the damage it does to your skin. It stated that some may even speed up the process of skin cancer forming. Those kinds of articles are the exact kind of things that get people all worked up and I decide to avoid. I have to make the decision to do what I think is best for me then “PRESS ON”! You can’t worry and over think EVERYTHING in life.

 

But here is the thing, I know that is is 100% to live by this philosophy for ME! But I just started thinking, is it okay to raise my kids this way. Who am I to decide for them whether they should be carefree and put them at risk or if I should have to worry about whether I am microwaving their food in a plastic bowl that could be giving them ADHD or cancer or whatever the research is saying these days, obviously I haven’t read it. Who am I to make the decision for my kids?

Wordless Wednesday: What a Year Brings… (a year ago yesterday, Karl came home!)

NOW

I’m all Ear…Infections

I know some of you have heard this story, but I wanted to blog about it to document it for my own sake…

 

I have ‘dealt’ with my fair share of ear infections; Brady had at least 10 double ear infections in the first 18 months of her life. If she had a cold I brought her in and sure enough she had ear infections. But never once would she tug on her ears or cry or give me any sign of pain. So really I haven’t dealt with them except to wipe the snotty nose that comes with it and try to remember 10 days of antibiotics!

 

So when we were on day eight of Brady’s nasty snotty nose, I didn’t think anything of it since it had been over a year since she had had an ear infection. I had Brady out shopping at Target after dinner (believe or not this was to reward Brady, because she loves to shop) and then she just out of nowhere started whining over and over about her ear hurting. I said “okay lets go home” then she said her ear was all better. But then 2 minutes later it would hurt again and we would play the game again, so eventually I took her home and she was clearly in pain. That night she had LOTS of issues sleeping. So for the first time ever, Brady complained of her ear hurting and it kept her from sleeping.

 

Off to the doctor we went the next morning! My little 30 pounder was all smiles for the doctor; she was so excited to be there.

Well, the doctor looked in her left ear first, and said “that ear looks fine, which ear was she complaining about?” and I was like the other one…then as the doctor looked in that ear…a story unfolded. Apparently, there was external debris of some sort in her ear that caused an outer ear infection. The doctor said “Brady, did you put tissue in your ear?….”Yes!” There was bleeding included too. Anyways, there was an inner ear infection on that ear too, so apparently her ear was bothering her so she stuck tissue in there trying to make it feel better…UGH!

 

So on the way out I had the doc take a look in Reese’s ear, oh, by the way, Reese had two inner ear infections too! YIKES…I am a clueless mom!!!

 

The girls are seen by military doctors at the Navy hospital, which has a pharmacy onsite. They put the prescriptions into the computer and then you go immediately after and grab a number and wait to be called up. the wait is usually 45 minutes though and it never goes well for me, but I shouldn’t complain sine it is 100% free. Well on this day I wasn’t prepared with snacks for the long wait so I asked the doc to hand write the scripts so I could go to Target at my convenience.

 

Well I am in love with Target pharmacy now (sorry Daniel I know they are your competition)….The bottles they use for liquid medicine is AWESOME!!!

 

There is a hole in the top that is only as big as the syringe and then you flip it upside down to dispense. Thus you can actually get the last dose! This is an issue I have with amoxicillin! And they put those color rings on there so I easily know which bottle is which without looking for the name!!! I am now a fan for sure…

Blue Angel Show

One of my friend’s husbands is on the crew for “Fat Albert” which is the C-130 that begins the Blue Angel show. This is the airplane (to the left), and the family pictured below (Brooke, Joe and their son Gabriel):

The Blue Angel crew had a family day at which the families and friends came to watch practice. Then afterwards we got to go take an ‘official’ picture with the pilots in front of one of the jets. This is the first time we have been around aircraft that the girls have not been scared thanks to Karl’s NASCAR earphones.

We were sitting right on the flight line so we were VERY VERY close to the aircraft. What an amazing morning!!!

Then Brady, of course, has her own profile pictures from the air show…

Wordless Wednesday: What do you do with your time at the outlet mall?

The next karate kid

As much as being girlie runs through Brady’s blood, there are some ways I can “train” her to be anti-girlie…I am just short of typing tomboy here since she will never come close to that.

 

Before I tell you the story of Brady, I must give you some background info. For those of you that are married you are going to understand what I mean when I say this. After you are married and move in together you learn all the little details about your spouse, that you have no way of learning while you are dating. Some of those details are amazing and you wouldn’t trade for the world, like Karl happily cleans and scrubs the house each week. Some details you wonder is this the person I dated, but then you just laugh, like Karl when he sees a roach or spider has to get out the Raid and spray them until they are swimming in chemicals and the whole house in fuming, then he gets the biggest wad of paper towels to pick it up so his hands aren’t anywhere near the bug. You gotta laugh!

 

So I have decided that I will teach Brady to love nature’s creatures. I know some of you are going to be surprised by what I am about to tell you, because when I tried to get her to touch a caterpillar once on a picnic she freaked out. Well when we are in the house, she is okay with bugs. She picks them up (bare-handed mind you) and tells me they are suppose to be outside. So she opens the back door and drops them outside. She does this with spiders, bugs, etc. of any sort, dead or alive. Well this morning, she saw a house fly buzzing at the window. She said the fly needed to be outside. Sure, enough she caught that fly and put it outside!

We are in trouble! (but in a good way)

Lately, Karl and I are realizing more and more how intelligent our girls are. We don’t really have other toddlers to compare them to, but they amaze us on a daily basis with their imagination, memory or problem solving skills. Every time one of these stories come up, we look at each other and say “we are in trouble.”

So here are my two example from today that prompted me to write the blog. First, Brady walked into the living room while the TV was on NASCAR. The commercials were running, and a Driod commercial happened to be on. She said “That is Grandma’s phone!” For those that don’t know, my mom has had the Driod since last fall and Brady has probably only seen her 3-4 times since then. But the running joke in our family is that my mom might as well not have a phone because she never has it on her and if she does it is never charged (love you mom).

The next story was this evening we went on a family walk and came across a stray golf ball. Karl picked it up and Reese immediately put her hands out and said “ball, ball, ball.” Karl handed it to her where she happened to be standing in the grass at the time. Reese immediately walked off away from us, which puzzled us, but she walked over to the driveway and threw the ball so it would bounce. She knew, at 17 months old, that if she wanted the ball to bounce she had to walk to a hard surface! Karl and I just looked at each other and shook our heads.

 

We talked about how are we going to handle having two daughters that are infinitely smarter then us!

 

So I had already decided to share this blog with you, but had to of course wait until the girls were in bed to type it. Well, of course Brady had to shock us again while we were cleaning up her room….She was cleaning up her doll house (which has a mini-van and a beetle bug) and she reached under bed and grabbed a couple Jenga blocks and mumbled something about parking. Karl asked her to repeat herself. She stated clearly that she needed the blocks to set up the parking lot for the cars.

The difference Between an almost 17 month old and an Almost 3 year old

We have recently moved the “Little People” animals into Reese’s room, so there has been a peaked interest in them naturally. With our visit to the zoo this week, things really took off as far as identifying the animals. So Karl and I wanted to shot a video of Reese to share with the family.

http://picasaweb.google.com/orthner/May2010#5471190815779722962

 

Well Brady of course wanted the attention of being taped so we sat her down and asked her the same questions, and here is the resulting video.

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/orthner/May2010#5471191595117920642

April showers bring clearance sales at Target!

Brady and I were very excited about the rain boots and umbrella we found on sale at Target. She plays outside with them rain or shine. I will say however, if we leave the house with the sun shining then it starts to rain, she is very unhappy that she is not prepared with her boots and umbrella by her side!

Wordless Wednesday: WEEDS: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

Day out with Thomas

On May 1st we headed to Silverhill, AL (about 45 minutes west of us) for a day filled with trains. The girls don't know who Thomas the train is, but they do love trains, so we jumped on this opportunity. There were so many fun activities at the railroad station. First they both got a tattoo; Brady got a helicopter and Reese got a pink train.



Then we played in the inflatable jump houses while we waited for our "time" to ride Thomas. There was also a playground near by with the neatest teeter-tooter shaped like a plane that could hold kids in the pilot seats and on the wings!





Also there were about 8 tables of thomas tracks out for the kids to play with and bubbles to catch, a coloring station with stamps, a model train display, a story telling center (which happened to be Thomas videos on loop ;)!) There was a little train you could ride for free and went faster and wasn't inside a cabin.  Then the Thomas train you would ride at your given time. This actually was my least favorite part (and the only part you had to pay for). There were so many things to do and such a neat day. Next time we will go and just enjoy all the other activities and skip riding the slow big train.

[caption id="attachment_584" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="The family on the little train"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_580" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Holding tickets to get on Thomas train"]

[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_581" align="alignnone" width="225" caption=""All Aboard""][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_582" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Waiting for the train to leave the station"][/caption]

Happy Mother's Day!

Now we all have a mother we can thank for bringing us into the world, but it is when you have a mom that makes today special. For as long as I can remember I have always known that my mom was someone special. I remember getting on my friends as a teenager for disrespecting their mothers, because a person that works so hard to provide you so much definitely deserves respect.

Thank you mom for showing me that I can lean on you.

Thank you mom for dealing with me, even when I didn't understand how much you were doing for me.

Thank you mom for being my go to person for advice.

Thank you mom for being you.

Thank you mom for being a role model.

THANK YOU MOM FOR BEING MY FRIEND!

Thank you Brady and Reese for making me smile.

Thank you Brady and Reese for fulfilling my dreams.

Thank you Brady and Reese for being more amazing than I could have dreamed.

Thank you Brady and Reese for making this easy.

THANK YOU BRADY AND REESE FOR BEING MY FRIEND!



One of the most treasured relationships is a mother/daughter relationship. I consider myself one of the luckiest people in the world because not just on mother's day but everyday I reap the benefits of the great relationship as a mother and as a daughter!!!