Staying busy with crafts

I was just looking at all my June pictures trying to decide what to blog next (I was actually have lots I would want to talk about) but I then realized I have done a lot of crafty activities with the girls lately. I thought you would enjoy seeing some of them in progress.

 

We made play-doh volcanos!

 

Tie-dye shirts (and a tie-dyed toddler too)

Here is some of the results:

 

Coloring thank you cards:

Eric Carle Style Animal Paintings: Reese’s is the cheetah (with some help) and Brady did the ‘piglet’

 

I love doing crafts…and my girls do to!

Wordless Wednesday: Too much Band Hero

Well “Baby” Checks

Yesterday the girls had their physicals, Reese for 18 months and Brady for 3 years. They are very healthy and right on development track. The doctor told me that Reese has already hit some 3-year old bench marks!!!

Here are the measurements:

 

Reese:

Height-31.5 inches  50%ile

Weight-23 lbs 13 oz  ~40 %ile

Head- 19.5 inches  well above 95%ile

 

Brady:

Height-36.3 inches  25%ile

Weight-29 lbs 14 oz ~40%ile

Head- 19.9 inches  90%ile

 

So I would have never guessed the outcome of the above %iles!!! Reese has dropped in her height and weight %iles but went up in the head. I am glad the growth has slowed down, because for a while she was catching up with big sis. But I thought she was higher compared to kids her age, not average.

 

However, I do have to laugh that both of my girls have “large”heads! I have always had a big head, and apparently the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Sometimes we have to pack clothes away as “too small” because they don’t fit over their head even though they fit everywhere else!

It feels good to give

As I have mentioned in the previous post, we decided to collect items for the Ronald McDonald House in lieu of gifts for Brady’s 3rd birthday party.

 

How did we come to this decision?

1. The girls have more toys then we can fit in this huge house.

 

2. She invited about 25 kids to her party and no kid needs that many gifts. We also knew our family would still be giving gifts so she would still have the joy of a small amount of gifts.

 

3. The Ronald McDonald House (RMH) is in the process of building a new house here in Pensacola. Their current house is 9 rooms, the new house due to finish in 2 months, will be 26 rooms. They will not be increasing their paid staff. They need our help and we believe this charity is awesome and worthy of it.

 

4. Lastly, life lessons are learned all through life. We believed Brady was ready to process/understand what we were doing.

 

Since Brady is still young we had to make sure we talked about the situation several times so she would understand. We have been to several birthday parties lately, and when people showed up with bags in  hand, we wanted to make sure she knew that it would be for the RMH. We drive by the construction site for the new 26 room house about once a week so we would start causal conversations about how families would stay at that house (which she calls the “Old McDonald House”) because there are sick kids that have to stay at the doctors. She would always be intrigued and ask more questions, like “The kids are sick, and they can’t stay with their mommies and daddies?” etc.



But to really help make the concept tangible, a few days before her birthday party we went on a tour of current RMH. Brady loved the playroom because they had a dollhouse just like hers. We also got to look through scrapbooks to see ‘real faces’.



I personally loved the hamburger chairs!



But the thing that stuck with me the most was how much money they bring in each month from the soda can pop tops. Our local chapter gets around $1000 a month!!!! I always heard that it takes so many to even earn a dollar that it isn’t worth your time. But, I have collected every pop top since that day, you can even collect ones off of canned goods! Here is the pile the local house collected from the contest among the local schools.



Brady wanted to go back and play in the toy room but that was the perfect teachable moment.

 

So Brady had a great turn on her birthday and collected a lot of items:



You can’t see it well in the picture but there is also 4 gift cards valued $10-$30 each. She also received two more batches after the picture was taken!

 

So this last Saturday we loaded up everything into bags to drop off at RMH as a family.



Brady was very proud to be bringing all the items to the house. She was not shy at all to the volunteer and happily explained everything to her and answered all the questions. We are very proud for her sense of giving at such a young age!

 

18 months and 3 days ago…

If I wanted to continue the spacing between my first two kids, I would be having a third kid TODAY!!! Brady and Reese and 18 months and 3 days apart. It blows my mind to even think about because I can’t imagine what that would be like adding a newborn into this mix…. NO WORRIES not in the plans (sorry to disappoint if you wanted it to be) for now.

 

For your enjoyment, here is our first picture as a family of four on that day…18 months and three days ago…

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Karl’s Kurse

 

So Karl tends to attract natural disasters (or more recently manmade) everywhere he lives. I decided to compile these for you.

• 1989: San Francisco Earthquake
• 1992: Hurricane Iniki Category 4 hurricane: strongest to hit Hawaii in history
• 2000: Raleigh Record Snowstorm: about 24 inches in 2 days
• 2004: Hurricane Ivan 10th most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded
• 2005: Hurricane Dennis We also dealt with Hurricane Katrina but the eye didn’t go over our city
• 2009: Nor’ Ida Dropped 18 inches of rain thus flooding all of downtown Norfolk
• 2010: Gulf Oil Spill- The beaches on base have been officially closed due to the oil spill as on Monday. The base is not even on the gulf directly, it is on the bay but the oil has gotten up into the lagoons, etc.

When we moved here, we warned people of “Karl’s Kurse”, but at the time we thought it meant that we were in for a fierce hurricane season. There was no way we could predict what our city is dealing with now.

 

So with earthquakes, flooding, blizzards, hurricanes, and oil spills on his list,  I don’t ever dare tempt the curse by asking “What next?”

Wordless Wednesday: The birthday party after the birthday party…hey, dolls have to celebrate too!

Got Sprinkles?

For Brady’s 3rd birthday she choose to have a decorate your own cupcake and water fun party, thus the theme was “Get Sprinkled!”

We filled up 200 water balloons and they were gone within the first 10 minutes of the party. They were a huge hit!

  Brady loved standing on the porch and having 30+ people sing Happy Birthday to her while she held the cupcake that she decorated! There were also water guns for all the kids. The adults didn’t mind since it kept us cool in the heat index of 105 degrees!

  

   

As you can see there was lots of fun! I don’t know that any kid decorated only one cupcake. Some decorated just to decorate and never ate it. We baked them into ice cream cones so that them would be easy to hold onto. It was a great evening that will definitely be remembered!!!! Happy 3rd Birthday, Brady, We love you!!!

 

In lieu of gifts we asked guests to donate items to the Ronald McDonald House, it has been a great learning experience for Brady. After we drop the items off at the RMH we will post about the whole experience of touring the house before her birthday, collecting the items on her birthday, and dropping them off later. Stay tuned.

Happy 18 month birthday Reese!

This may be my favorite picture from Brady’s birthday party…too bad it wasn’t the birthday girl!

 

Okay, now I am going to work on the post of all the details of the party weekend!

I was just thinking…

This is one of my many favorite pictures from Brady’s birthday party. I am going to post all my favorites in a later post. I choose this one first because I just confirmed (while doing laundry) something I realized earlier. Both of my girls are wearing bathing suits from the same store, Gymboree. Well, my three year old is wearing a 12-18 month sized bathing suit and my not quite 18 month old is wearing a 18-24 month sized bathing suit. So on her 3rd birthday, Brady was passed in size by her sister for the first time.

 

Really Brady typically wears 2T so her belly doesn’t hang out but with bathing suits it doesn’t matter. What made the difference is Reese has to fit a swim diaper underneath and Brady doesn’t.

Wordless Wednesday: That’s a lot of pop tops! (more details to follow on a wordful day)

Happy Seventh Birthday Dewy!

SO Dewy is seven today! So every year that his birthday rolls around it makes me think…

It has been seven years since…

• I graduated college
• “on my own” as an adult
• Karl joined the Navy
• of course that we have even had a puppy (dependent) that long

We love you, Dewy! We couldn’t have asked for a better “ first born dog!!!!

 

And as a side note I wanted to update two blogs from last week:

• It only smelled like oil on Friday, so luckily I have been very happy about that!
• And Brady has done WONDERFULLY with not sucking her thumb once since last Tuesday, Reese however has happily received her pacis back. We will try again next year. ;)

Movie Night

We have started a new family tradition…Movie night! And I love it! Once a week we pop popcorn and watch a kids’ movie after dinner in our PJs.

 

Thus far we have watched UP, Lilo and Stitch, and Happy Feet. Next week’s feature: Ratatouille! That is if we don’t go see something in theaters with the girls for the first time!!! We will keep you posted.

 

Bradyisms Chapter 4

• 5/24/10: After one of Karl’s softball games, “I liked playing with the boy tonight. His name was wheel (Will)”
• 5/27/10: I asked Brady if Bitty Baby was her best friend “yes” and I said well I am glad that Bitty was able to move to Pensacola from Virginia Beach with us. Brady said “And Reese’s Bitty moved to Pensacola too?” Then I explained that Reese’s Bitty didn’t live in Virginia Beach but for a week because she got it the week before we moved (Reese got it for her birthday). Brady then said “Oh, Bitty was in Reese’s belly?”
• 6/6/10: I went in to change Reese’s diaper and Brady told Reese “You stink like stinky”

And this chapter I will leave you with a Reeseism

 

6/6/10: Reese came running into the bathroom when I was showering. I said “who is that!?!”(animated). She stared at me blankly. I then asked her “What is your name?” She promptly answered “Baidy”! They say younger siblings learn from their older siblings. Well I guess she has only heard that question answered by Brady.

On any given Day

I get loads and loads of compliments about both of the girls hair. I usually can’t get through an aisle in a store without at least one person stopping me and commenting on their hair. About a year ago,  I had one person say “You must get a lot of compliments?” I said “Yes, why do you ask?” They replied, “You didn’t seemed to shocked (otherwise grateful) when we said something” So after that I have tried to make sure to really appreciate each persons admiration of my beautiful daughters. Well, I wanted to contribute this post to what I see on most days, that is when I don’t have their hair “styled” for going out of the house.

 

To maintain their hair the ‘routine’ I have come up with includes using regular and leave-in conditioner at bath time. Also, every morning or if we are going out, I have to spray their hair with water until it is completely wet again then brush it out. Then lastly, scrunch it up with my hand to give the curls oomph. For Reese,  who plays with her hair to fall asleep, she wakes up from her nap with it a mess again, so I have to decide whether I want to ‘style’ it in the morning or in the afternoon after her nap.

Following Directions

I asked Reese to go put her clothes in her dirty laundry. This was the result:

 

I guess she knows that something dirty goes in there. And just as some background, she has successfully put her dirty clothes in her hamper before. Don’t know what struck her fancy this particular morning.

The Oil has hit the Beach

But more importantly, you open the door and you are knocked down by an awful odor that immediately gives you a headache. Thus no more playing outside for us for who knows how long. I have been told as soon as I could smell the oil to get out of here for my kids sake. So now I have a very difficult decision laying on my lap. So many things I have to consider when making this decision; activities that have already been planned (and paid for) for us here like our week vacation in July, taking advantage of the time with Daddy while he isn’t being deployed, having the regularity of living at home, the uncertainty of how long it will take for the oil and its effects to go away but then there is the health of my daughters to consider too.

 

Heavy heart today, I don’t know how the BP execs are dealing with this, when I only have to think about my family of four.

Wordless Wednesday": “Doggies need Nice things too” Yes, those are fiesta dog bowls!!!

Double the Pleasure

So I have a thumb-sucker and a paci-sucker. I have casually tried to get Brady to stop sucking her thumb, but seen no progress what-so ever. I have internally dreaded the day I have to depart Reese from her pacis. I have come up with several different plans and dates to remove them, well those dates have come and gone.

 

Here is the issue with Reese and the paci. She only gets them in the crib, so nap and bedtime. But not only does she suck on one, she usually has one in each hand that she is fiddling with until she has fallen asleep. So, by removing the pacis from Reese is taking away her “lovie” too.

 

So,  I was looking at Brady’s teeth the other night. I have always know they are bucked from her thumb sucking but man they have really seemed to move out. So I did some research: APA suggests thumb sucking to completely done by 4 when adult teeth may start to grow in (yikes that is in a year,  I need to get working on that). A couple dentist website recommended (and scared me) that she have quitted back when she turned two…WHOOPS. So here we are 11 days from her 3rd birthday and I am taking action…

 

We went to Target and picked out band-aids to make her boo-boo (the callous that has been created from the sucking) better on her thumb. She will wear a band-aid day and night until I feel like we are in the clear. So since 11:30 this morning she has been a non-thumb sucker. She asked “Can I suck the other thumb?” And I said sure. Which she has tried a couple times, but realized it isn’t as easy. I have told her yes, because everything I read said to make the experience as positive as possible, so I was trying to not make this about stopping the thumb sucking but about making the boo-boo go away.

 

Well, you probably know where this is going.  I figured if I was going to be miserable tonight while Brady struggled to fall asleep without her thumb, why not deal with the paci issue on the same night. So mark June 1, 2010…Brady went without her thumb for the first time since September, 2007 and Reese went without her paci for the first time since December 2008…well kinda!

 

For Reese I decided to cut the ends of the paci so that she could still have them in her crib to use as a “lovie” but they wouldn’t be as interesting to suck on. Reese however feel asleep by chewing on the paci…baby steps and only crying on and off for about 10 minutes.

 

Brady fell asleep in 5 minutes without crying!!! Not so miserable after all. I watched her for a little bit on the video monitor, she tried sucking her band-aid thumb got frustrated and then switched to her left thumb, got frustrated again and then gave up and just got into a ball. Next time I checked the monitor she was asleep.

 

So, okay, maybe I should have not been so scared of taking this step. But I will get back to you in a week, and tell you if it still is going this well.

Another First for Reese

Reese went "pee-pee" in the potty for the first time today!!! However, this does not mean we are starting potty training by any means. We just have issues with Reese relieving herself on the carpet immediately after a bath; we can't even get a diaper on her most nights. So tonight I decided to put her on the potty after the bath and sure enough she went.

We sang her the same song that we made up for Brady. Let me tell you how pumped Brady was that Reese was a "big girl." Brady happily gave a stamp to Reese to reward her and then gave herself a stamp for sharing her potty. Then there was like 10 minutes of singing, dancing, hollering, running, etc. all over the house. But the best thing about it all was the celebration dance could be done nude by both of them and we didn't have to worry about cleaning up a piddle puddle. :) remember the trifecta?