this is SO Sydney

Last year Sydney started to get into tank tops. Toward the end of summer she had gotten a new coral colored one with a butterfly on it. When I got out all of her summer stuff I forgot about it. It was in last years stuff. I got the box out yesterday because I knew some of the stuff would still fit her. She seems like a little peanut these days, yet so big, sniff, sniff.
Anyway, we found the butterfly tank top and oh my. She's so happy. She takes very good care not to get it dirty hoping that she can just continuously wear it without it being washed...

Iron Man

I have a new competition for the Iron Man or Toughest Man contest:
Go to BJ's, get a car cart and put 70lbs. worth of toddler/preschooler in it. Get a 35 pack of Deer Park. And a bunch of random other crap which is all big and heavy. Push it around the aisles.
Make car noises so it's fun. No grunting allowed.

random updates

Well, last night Mollie fell down the stairs. I think about 1/2 the main flight before the landing. I was in the kitchen and heard thump, thump, thump, then loud crying. I was just around the corner, ran around, grabbed her up (maybe not the best idea) and she was okay. Thank God! It was awful hearing those thumps. I think it's because she didn't take her Crocs off before she started up the stairs. We really have a no shoes on the stairs rule, but I guess she is like, 2.

Oh, and this is funny. She's told me I'm mean twice. In the car on Monday, "Sydney, my Mommy's mean" I had told her 5 min. before to stop kicking the back of the seat and put her feet down. She just waited to let it sink in I think. Then yesterday she says, "Mommy, my Daddy's not mean". I said "you're right, he's not, he's a nice Daddy." She said, "yeah, Mommy's mean". Really?? I just CAN'T WAIT till she's 13!

Sydney took another nap today. That's 5 days in a row! I let her stay up a little later and watch extra Mary Poppins and have popcorn.

We had a busy day today:
gym
Planet Child
home for lunch and naps
large Target trip
dinner at Cinelli's with Kim and Joshua
Harris Teeter for diet coke and potty M&M's
home for Mary Poppins and bed
Ahhh...tired

Phil's gone tonight and tomorrow night. I think he'll be gone 2 nights next week too. Things are picking up a bit in the travel department!

pictures from the lake

Here is a shutterfly link to the new pics:)

share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=2CcM3LJmxYsUa

Here are some highlights!

We had a really good time. I have to admit that I was not 100% excited about things like this because in the past the girls have gotten up at like 5:30 and woken up everyone in the camper...refused to sleep b/c they're so excited...stood at the door chanting water! water! over and over...you get the picture. It's definitely a good idea to get there and have at least one night there before anyone else is sleeping in the camper with us. And luckily our camper has 2 actual rooms that can be closed off. The back room as a set of bunks and a table and bench things that fold down to a twin bed. My father in law made some really nice rails for them so no one falls off off. Anyway, they did great! The only snafu was that Saturday night the 4 girls were up until 11:15!! But I just had to let go of my bedtime control issues and pray that they would sleep in in the morning. They were a little wound up:) But nope, 7am, ready to go. Sydney did nap there b/c she was so worn out. Today she didn't get up until 8am which never happens and took a nap today too!

They had the most fun fishing. We need to get Mollie her own pole. She actually had a few bites when she was using Sydney's pole. No one caught anything, but they just wanted to cast and reel in anyway. The girls did go swimming some, especially Olivia and Emma, my neices. It was colder than it usually is when we are there for Memorial Day!

So we ended up having a great time, the weather was nice, and it was evident that as the girls get older and more independent, it's going to get a little easier. And since I was either pregnant or breastfeeding from the summers of 2003-2006, haha, I hadn't been getting to go too far or enjoy very many water sports! It was much less stressful this time! I actually didn't bring a book with me and wished I had. I always do, but I brought 3 magazines instead thinking I wouldn't have time to read them, but during naps I was getting bored!

We'll go back July 4th week, Labor day weekend and hopefully one other time in there somewhere. We're going to squeeze in Tweetsie next time also!

Memorial Day weekend

We have been gone since Thursday after lunch. Went to our camper at Watauga Lake in TN.
Got home and went to a cookout:)
I'll have some pics and more tomorrow. We're dead tired!!

tummy troubles

Mollie's tummy hurts. She hasn't eaten much for the last few days then today she's had the runs twice. Not terrible, just unusual. And she just doesn't seem to feel very good. She actually keeps saying, "my tummy hurts" in her cute little pitiful voice. She fell asleep on the couch at 11am. So we've spent much of the day watch tv and snuggling on the couch. I think Sydney is getting a tad bored:) Today is Nancy's day off so we were supposed to have a special trip to the mall. Sydney was extremely excited about that. But Chase is sick too! He got a cough and Nancy took him to to the dr. this morning and he has some bad croup and can't go back to daycare until next week! Funny how your plans can change so quickly, but luckily it was on both of our parts. She's still sleeping now at 12:20. I'm hoping I can get a good 3 hour nap out of her!

We have a carpet cleaner coming at 3 and I was worried about having to wake her up from her nap, but not now! I'm hoping this is short lived because her last day of school is tomorrow and then we're off to the lake for the weekend!

Sydney was being so cute and looking so cute so I took a few pictures of her on the front steps.

quick weekend update

Busy, busy. Date night, visiting my mother in law who had surgery a little over a week ago, spent the night with my parents, back here, cookout with my sisters and one of my sister Courtney's friends and their baby Eli who is 2 weeks younger than Chase. Chase and Eli had their first play date! It was a lot of fun.

It started thundering when the guys were grilling and Courtney was telling Sydney that it was God bowling. So what does Mollie do? Runs to the play room to get the bin with her bowling set in it:) So cute.

Today was a beautiful day!!!!!

friday

It's so funny watching Sydney. After no nap since Sunday I guess...it catches up with her. But she was wound up after out fun morning. I'll get back to that. We tried quiet time in her room for about 10 min, but I just knew today was not going to work. I got some laundry done then let her come out and told her she could lay on the couch and snuggle me. I turned on Super Why and she didn't want to lay with me. So I'm sitting on the other side of the couch just watching her. She gets all comfortable, gets rid of the pillow, focuses on the tv and it starts. The droopy eyes. I have been sitting here gradually watching her eyes close, open back up real quick, then close again. I think it's over now:) So sweet.

This morning we went up to Hopper's House and met our friends Dawn and Ava. My friend Leanne also joined us and her twins who are almost 3, Sean and Catherine. They're so cute! And since Dawn is about to have boy/girl twins on June 2nd it was fun for us to all get together. Sydney has (in the past) annoyed the crap out of Ava. But lately they've been playing so well together! They did great all morning. And man, does Mollie love that Moon Sand! I'm going to have to get some of that for home. They came over here to get a bite for lunch and play till naps.
Thank you all for wearing Sydney out!

Tonight Phil and I are going to the movies. Hopefully we'll have time to sneak in some dinner first. I really want to see Made of Honor, but he isn't loving the idea. We will see it though b/c I haven't made him go to a chick flick in years!!!

Mollie's party

Mollie's end of the year party was today. The last day is actually next Thursday, but they use the hall and grounds for the "real" preschool parties that day so we do the MMO ones a week early. I had told silly little Mollie that we were going to have her school party today. She had been running around with me getting gifts (for her teachers, not her) over the last few days. And then I didn't put 2 and 2 together when she was asking me if I was all ready for her birthday party. I was like...uhh...in December? Then her teacher said once we got to the party that Mollie had been telling them it was her birthday all morning, haha. I finally told her it could be her 2.5 year old party. None of the kids had any idea. They didn't care, they had balloons, pizza and ice cream! Then they played outside with some water toys and other games. She got a tatoo, but would NOT do the fishing game. I'm not sure why.


Here is Mollie and her 2 little friends Eliza and Anna:

Mary Poppins and balloons

The girls LOVE Mary Poppins. They watch at least a small part of it every day probably. Sydney loves when she's in the nursery and looks in the mirror and says "cheeky". She'll crack up every time.

Monday afternoon we went to the grocery store. Both girls got a balloon. When we got home they were running around on the drive way while I put the stuff in the house. Well of course Mollie let her balloon go. We always try to make a big deal out of it going up to Jesus and that it's a happy thing. She wasn't so happy. She just got whiny and asked if I could go get it. I said, no Mollie, we can't fly. She said, well can't we get in the stroller and go up and get my balloon from Jesus? I said, no, we can't go up there. She says, well Mary Poppins can go get it. Can she get my balloon for me? I told her no, she wasn't real. That did not make her very happy. She asked if Sydney could go get it. Or Jane or Michael (from MP). We went in the house and I told her she could have another one next time we went to the store. She said that she was sad and hung her cute little head and pouted and stuck her lip way out. But she was fine. From Monday to today everytime she gets the least bit upset about something and I ask her what is wrong she tells me it's because she misses her balloon and wants to get it back from Jesus. She told Nancy all about it yesterday afternoon. Everything reminds her of the balloon, haha.
This afternoon before naps we were watching another part of MP and they were with the guy who laughs really hard and floats to the ceiling. Bert laughs and goes up there too and Michael and Jane follow. I (testing her) say "Mollie, what would you do if you could fly like that?" She sticks her lip out and says, "I would go get my balloon. It floated away and made me sad."

Nevermind the fact that at her school party today we came home with like 6 balloons:)

lovely Tuesday

Today was a good day. I have a hard time waking up in the mornings though. The Zyrtec at night does me in:) The girls had a great day at school.
Mollie's teachers just love her and I love them. I always like to pick up a smiling girl! Luckily she will have them again next year b/c they're moving up to the 2's and all the kids in this class that are staying at St. Andrews get to go with them! Thursday is her class end of the year party even though their last day is a week from Thursday. I am one of the room parents so I've been getting ready for the party and teacher gifts together.
Sydney is doing better at school. She has been having trouble focusing. Yeah, she's 4, haha. I guess center time this year has been particularly difficult for her and they'd like to see her spending more time in each center and actually doing something rather than looking around the room and constantly asking when she can do something else. Only to go to something else and want to go to a different thing. If I didn't have an education background I would probably think it was BS, and I do think they're reacting a bit early, but it's something she needs to learn. They want her to be successful next year so that she'll be fine in kindergarten.
She gets a bit overstimulated in there I think and wants to do everything at once. So our plan has been to look at the chart they put out each day of what they're going to do and pick 2 "have to" centers. She always will go to Art first b/c that's her favorite, and well, apparently if they don't get that out of the way it's an issue, haha. Then she has to do her 2 "have to's" that she's involved in choosing. When she completes those she can move on. Her teachers said it's working pretty well. And she seems to remember more of what she's doing at school to relay it to me. Other than what kind of cups other kids had at lunch and who had a Hannah Montana shirt on.

After school the girls had nap/quiet time, Sydney got up and helped me make some brownies (already ate 4), and I had to wake Mollie up at 4. We played a little, watched a little Dora, and went to the gym. Phil's gone so then we had dinner with Kim and Joshua at Qdoba, yum. We of course had to visit the little door store (Kid to Kid, consignment store across the parking lot) after that. They were so cute. Sydney went to bed early since she was napless and Mollie finished her Dora episode then went to bed! Yay!

mother's day

Happy Mother's Day to all of my dear friends and family who read this!

Friday Mom took the day off work and she and Dad came up for the weekend. We cooked out Friday night with N, T, and Chase and our neighbor James. (Michele, we missed you!) We gave Mom her Mother's Day presents and the girls played outside a lot and were wild and crazy and cute.

Yesterday Phil and I left about 9:30 for Wilmington. Our friends Scott and Teresa got married last night at this beautiful place called the Greystone Inn in downtown Wilmington. I love downtown Wilmington. We stayed at the Wilmingtonian, a neat little bed and breakfast suite style hotel place. It was right around the corner from the wedding place and a block or 2 from the water front. We got down in time to hang out and have lunch with lots of friends that we haven't seen in a while. These are people that we mostly see around football season/ Christmas parties and stuff. Cookout season will crank up again and maybe we'll see them more. We used to more before children:) We sat down by the water front for a few hours and talked and had drinks and enjoyed being outside. Then we walked to get ice cream and back to our hotel to get ready for the 6:30 wedding. It was really nice and so sweet. We're really happy for them. We went back to change at like 10 (seriously) and then went back out till about 1. It was really fun, and not crazy so that was good:)
We headed back this morning and got back right around noon to see the little ladies. They did some Mother's day crafts for me with Gramma. And Gramma did all my laundry. What a great gift! Even though my mother should really not be giving me a gift. And after all, staying with the girls, taking Sydney to a birthday party yesterday, taking the girls to Red Robin for dinner last night, and hanging out with them for over 24 hours alone were probably enough....! She and Dad love it though. We're very lucky to say the least.

The girls and Phil got me a bench I had been wanting for the back yard so I have some place to sit that doesn't itch me when they're out playing!

We all took naps today. Sydney and I slept on one end of the couch, Phil on the other end, and Mollie in her bed. I think that was the best part of my day. Snuggling with Sydney. She's never been too much of a snuggler.

We then went to Panera and had a nice healthy dinner then went to Cold Stone for a not so healthy ice cream. It was free for moms if you bought another one.

this is hilarious

my friend Brandon sent me this and it's funny enough to share...


HOW TO PREPARE FOR BECOMING A PARENT

Lesson 1
Go to the grocery store. Arrange to have your salary paid
directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the paper.
Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2
Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple
who already are parents and berate them about their: Methods
of discipline. Lack of patience. Appallingly low tolerance
levels. Allowing their children to run wild. Suggest ways in
which they might improve their child's breastfeeding, sleep
habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior.
Enjoy it, because it will be the last time in your life you
will have all the answers.

Lesson 3
To discover how the nights will feel... Walk around the living
room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing
approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or
some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. At 10PM, put the
bag down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep. Get up
at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag,
until 1AM. Set the alarm for 3AM. As you can't get back to
sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink. Go to bed at 2:45AM.
Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off. Sing songs in the dark
until 4 AM. Get up. Make breakfast. Keep this up for 5
years. Look cheerful.

Lesson 4
Can you stand the mess children make? To find out... Smear
peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a
piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all
summer. Stick your fingers in the flower bed. Then rub them
on the clean walls. Cover the stains with crayons. How does
that look?

Lesson 5
Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems. Buy an
octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh. Attempt to
put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang
out. Time allowed for this - all morning.

Lesson 6
Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and a jar of
paint, turn it into an alligator. Now take the tube from a
roll of toilet paper. Using only Scotch tape and a piece of
aluminum foil, turn it into an attractive Christmas candle.
Last, take a milk carton, a ping-pong ball, and an empty
packet of Cocoa Puffs. Make an exact replica of the Eiffel
Tower.

Lesson 7
Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don't think that you
can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family
cars don 't look like that. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone
and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a
dime. Stick it in the CD player. Take a family size package
of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Run a
garden rake along both sides of the car. There. Perfect.

Lesson 8
Get ready to go out. Wait outside the bathroom for half an
hour. Go out the front door. Come in again. Go out. Come
back in. Go out again. Walk down the front path. Walk back
up it. Walk down it again. Walk very slowly down the road
for five minutes. Stop, inspect minutely, and ask at least 6
questions about every cigarette butt, piece of used chewing
gum, dirty tissue, and dead insect along the way. Retrace
your steps. Scream that you have had as much as you can stand
until the neighbors come out and stare at you. Give up and go
back into the house. You are now just about ready to try
taking a small child for a walk.

Lesson 9
Repeat everything at least (if not more than) five times.

Lesson 10
Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest
thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full- grown goat
is excellent). If you intend to have more than one child,
take more than one goat. Buy your week's groceries without
letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the
goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this,
do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 11
Hollow out a melon. Make a small hole in the side. Suspend
it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side. Now get a
bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the
swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane. Continue until
half the Cheerios are gone. Tip half into your lap. The other
half, just throw up in the air. You are now ready to feed a
nine - month old baby.

Lesson 12
Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street, Barney,
Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on
T.V. for at least five years.

Lesson 13
Move to the tropics. Find or make a compost pile. Dig down
about halfway and stick your nose in it. Do this 3-5 times a
day for at least two years.

Lesson 14
Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying 'mommy' repeatedly.
(Important: no more than a four second delay between each
'mommy'; occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet
is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go
for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long
trip with a toddler.

Lesson 15
Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else
continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt- sleeve, or elbow
while playing the 'mommy' tape made from Lesson 14 above. You
are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there
is a child in the room.

Bernard Arthur

muffins for moms

This morning Sydney's preschool hosted "Muffins for Moms" in the fellowship hall at the beginning of the day. It was so cute. You can't see them in the pics, but each child had a pot they had decorated with a flower in it. And they had made corsages for us, haha. They were made out of coffee filters and pipe cleaners and were so, so cute. The teachers served coffee, apple juice and muffins. It was sweet. Sydney and I were glad to have some special time together.

One thing I want to point out is that you probably don't see many pics with her hair down anymore. She always throws up a ponytail. But today she wanted braids since it was a special occasion and she picked out a matching outfit. She looked so cute:) Everyone commented on how nice she looked. I think she's always beautiful, but you know what I mean. She's 4 and has an opinion.

And here are Jennifer and Matthew:

And Sydney and Matthew...

side note: they put us at different tables, we think on purpose, haha. they've already told us that the pals would be seperated in the 4's next year;)

abc hike

This morning we went to Crowder Park with a group of preschool moms/kids for an ABC hike led by Ross the Ranger. I didn't know most of the parents, but met a lot of nice ones! The mom who organized it has a 3.5 year old daughter and twin 10 month old daughters. Wowsers. They were mostly from other 3's classes and had asked my friend Jennifer, Matthew and Lindsay to go who asked us to go. It was really cute.
I think when the guy got started he was like, "oh great, there are 26 if these things...". The kids weren't real quick with their answers even though you knew a lot of them knew beginning sounds of things. Basically they were looking for things in nature and crossing off the beginning letter on this chart. Like T for turtle. It's a beautiful park, we had never been there before. We got to see a lot of geese and a BIG snapping turtle! Mollie whined through most of the walk and I went back to the car to get the stroller as the walk was almost over, haha. Then the kids enjoyed playing on the playground and having a picnic lunch. It was a nice way to spend the morning. It was one of our first quite hot mornings out and they were pretty tired.

Mollie fell asleep on the way home and it doesn't look like Sydney's going to take one, but they'll both go to bed early now so that's fine:) Here are some pics from the hike!

Our neighbor who is 14 is coming over in a bit to hang out so I can go to the gym which I am having trouble fitting in lately while the girls are awake. She's in year-round middle school so she's tracked out right now and evidently quite bored!

And lately when the girls are in school I've just had too many other things that I would love to get done without them...I can get twice as much done running around by myself. This is the reason that around August you will see me counting for the days for the first day of preschool 08-09! The girls' last day is May 22 for this year!

tired

We're all so tired! The girls were cranky and tired even though they thankfully slept much of the trip back. I am tired, but have to watch One Tree Hill. Phil is tired from flying and driving around. I've updated the shutterfly site with the rest of our April pictures and the beach ones to start May.

fun times at the beach

We are having a great time, both girls are currently sleeping it off;)
Phil finally got here from Orlando, via Raleigh, via car, last night at like 7:30. Without his luggage. His bag arrived this morning and his golf clubs got here a few minutes ago, haha.
We've had such a nice visit with Nancy and Travis and Chase (who left today) and Courtney and Cameron who are staying with us until we leave tomorrow.
The girls have been able to wear bathing suits and play on the beach in the tidal pools which are awesome at low tide. We spent about 2 hours on the beach yesterday morning and about an hour yesterday afternoon and this morning. Mollie already has renewed her great tan from last year! I have some cute pictures that I'll probably put up tomorrow when we get home!
Travis did a ton of work yesterday around the outside of the house, Phil painted a lot of deck and rocking chairs today, Chase was a very good boy, Mollie played alligator and "baby river dolphin (from Diego)" in the water, Sydney jumped in the waves with Courtney and Cameron. Cameron made us a great low country boil last night.
We're getting ready to go shop some and out to eat when the sleepers awake!

Saturday morning at the beach

5:55am~ Mollie wakes up and walks into my room. "Mommy, I need a popsicle". I said, "Mollie, it's not time to get up yet. You can not have a popsicle yet. After lunch you can have one. She says, "okay, you can just change my diaper now". Super. Sydney gets up 10 min. later and we snuggle in the bed until 6:40 when we hear that Chase is up too. I think it's going to be a long day...

my brain is in my stomach

Quick conversation with Sydney this morning in the car as I'm passing Lowes foods. We needed to pick up some teacher appreciation flowers.
Sydney: aren't we supposed to be going to Lowes?
Me: oh man! I think I've lost my brain, where did my brain go, I keep forgetting things! Do you know where my brain is?
Sydney: it's in your stomach

I had to explain that it's in your head. She said "oh. I didn't know that" like she really was disappointed b/c she thought it was in your stomach:)

Macho Man

I forgot that I forgot to blog about the preschool fundraiser. Each class had a "theme" basket to put together. I think there were 12 baskets total. One was just gift cards, awesome!
Anyway, I missed the Bunco and Baskets party at the church Sat. night, but my friend Jennifer called me to tell me that I won one!!! I couldn't believe it. I mean, these baskets are not baskets, they're huge. Sometimes 2 different things. They're on rolling pallet things. Mine was probably 4 ft. long and 4ft. high. I should have taken a picture of it. The director took one of me next to it so maybe she'll give it to me.

Turns out I won the Macho Man basket, haha.
This is what all it had in it:
2 tickets to Truck Qualifying at Lowes Motor Speedway (May 16)
2 Carquest 300 tickets at Lowes Motor Speedway (May 24)
2 Personal training sessions with a dad at the school who is also a trainer-$120 value
(10) $20 gift cert.’s for Rush Hour Karting
(2) $20 gift cert.s for Sparks Sports Bar
5 day wheelie cool cooler
2 free Papa Johns pizzas
3 in 1 golf cooler, large pack of golf balls
$20 Dick’s Sporting Goods gift cert.
Camping Chair
2 flashlights
5 pc. Pliers set
Coleman water bottle
$6 off in Jersey Mikes g.c’s.
Oxo BBQ tool set
Williams-Sonoma cedar planks
Car wash set/tools
Tape measure, 15 in 1 pocket tool, WD-40, picture hanging kit
2 Dell dress shirts, Dell back pack, Dell coffee Mug
Tan tote thingy
Safety goggles

I’m not sure what the total value of the basket is, but several hundred dollars! Phil's super happy about the go-cart tickets. I think it's close to his office. I might use the personal trainer since I realized that it's actually a guy who goes to my gym b/c I see him there all the time!
If you know anyone who wants the racing tickets let us know:)