this weather

We're really enjoying this great weather! It's so nice to see different clothes and Sydney is so happy to legitimately wear shorts and short sleeved shirts. This weekend I'm going away to Emerald Isle with Ashley and Daniele (teacher friends) to scrapbook. Ashley's mom has a house there on the sound and it's so nice and I get a ton done since I'm a year behind! We've been doing it for a few years. Phil will have the girls and is probably taking them to Mocksville and Yadkinville to visit family and see one of our neice Emma's ball games. They'll have a great time I'm sure. As will I!

strollers R us

I got a new stroller:) Again. But it's used! I got it on Craigslist. A Sit and Stand
http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Trend-Sit%252d%2591n%252dStand-Stroller-Parent/dp/B000IHVHH0/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=baby-products&qid=1208894025&sr=8-2

I sold our Graco Duoglider that I got before Mollie was born. Got $70 for it and bought the Sit and Stand for...$70! I wish I had gotten one like a year ago when I first thought about it, but I thought surely Sydney would grow out of it. Uh, no, still likes to ride. But she does like to hop in and out. So the Sit and Stand model *should* be perfect for her. I certainly didn't want to buy a new one at this point in the game though. And as much as I did love the Duoglider, it was pretty darn heavy! The side by side did not quite work for these 2 handsy girls.

Here is my stroller-roll:
1. started out with my Graco travel system, the stroller and car seat combo. I sold that last year at a yard sale.
2. had the cheap Babiesrus umbrella stroller. Well, Phil's 6'1". He was always hunching over, it had no basket for stuff, and was well, cheap. Sold that on Craigslist.
3. Got a single jogging stroller (don't mean to confuse you, I don't run) on ebay that I hated so I sold that for $10 less than I paid for it and got a new one at BRU. Still have it.

4. My mother in law gave me some $$ to put toward a double stroller and I knew I wanted one that would fit the car seat so I got the Graco Duoglider LXI, really nice, black so it would match my car seat b/c I care about those things, etc. I think it was like $170. Now it's gone:)
5. got a MacLaren double umbrella stroller at a consignment sale for $60. I thought they might enjoy that for less formal trips and when we didn't need the car seat anymore. The girls could not handle being next to each other. Even the 4 or 5 mo. old Mollie. She would accidentally touch Sydney and Sydney would hit her. We were forseeing a problem. So I sold it on Craigslist for $90. See? I made some $$ on it.
By this time Phil is getting a little annoyed with me:)

6. I got a Chicco C6 umbrella stroller that is by far the best one I've had. That was when Mollie was about 7-8 months old. Still use it quite often.
7. Now my Sit and Stand! Phil really didn't mind since he's the one always pushing them and I didn't lose any money this time.

From what I hear this is a common problem:) Don't laugh too hard!

oops

So as you can see I've been playing around with my blog layout some. The link to Mr. Al does not work, but I can't figure out how to edit my text now!
Anyway, the site is
www.mralmusic.com

MR. AL!

Today was a day we had been waiting for for a few months. Our Mr. Al concert! I have a few of his CD's and had been to 3 Mr. Al concerts on field trips when I was student teaching/teaching K, and had kind of been on the look out for him to come back to Raleigh again. When I checked in the Fall I couldn't find any dates. Then some time in Feb. my Mom mentioned that he was coming to NC! So I organized a group of 31 of us (moms and kids) to go see him this morning! It took me 45 min. to get downtown from my house, haha. Traffic was a bear with all the construction downtown. But everyone did a great job all getting there around the same time and we all got in just fine and got great seats. The interesting thing was that they sent me one ticket that said 31 tickets instead of 31 tickets. So we all had to be together to come in. But they were only $5! We paid $7 to park and $5 per ticket if that makes any sense. Anyway, I'm too long winded, sorry.

We had a great time! Mollie LOVED IT so much I can't even describe it. She was so excited to go in and then she stood in my lap much of the time and danced and sang the songs she knew. Sydney is a little more reserved about things like that, but was so happy to hear songs that she knew and sit next to Matthew:)

I Love You, a favorite book

As I was reading to Mollie before bed I was thinking I would share one of our favorite books. We have hundreds of books. Hundreds. Mostly b/c I saved all my books from my classroom and had gotten a ton for the girls before they were born and when Sydney was a baby. But anyway, here is a really cute book that your baby/toddler/preschooler will be able to read by themselves:
It's called I Love You and it's a rebus book. The text follows a pattern and has pictures to cue your child with what to say. My first experience with this book was in my class when I had a cute little girl named Michelle. Michelle is Hispanic and spoke little to no English. During that year we "found" an IEP and developmental evaluation that somehow didn't make it into her folder for a while. Turns out she had been diagnosed with Down Syndrome (which we suspected) and that she couldn't see! The Lion's club donated her eye care and our ESL teacher and Speech teacher (spoke Spanish) took her to get her glasses. She was like a different kid after she could see as you can imagine! Anyway, by the end of the year she was reading this book. She ended up repeating kindergarten to give her a chance to be successful as long as possible, but was transferred to another school so I'm not sure what happened after that year.
Great book! I had the paper back, but got it in a board book when Sydney was a baby. I've given it for gifts as well. Very cute.

TGIF

Wow, it's already Friday! It's been a nice week. The weather is gorgeous!!! I took the girls over to the NCSU field lab where they were holding a Farm Animal Days thing today. We were going to go first thing this morning, but we have having a hard time getting moving. I ended up taking them around 12. Odd for me b/c I'm generally a stickler about Mollie's nap and didn't want her falling asleep too early in the car. I had heard though that 12/1ish was a good time to go b/c school field trips were heading out. We saw rabbits, turkeys, baby chicks, quail babies, horses, cows, a 2 week old calf, sheep, goats. Mollie was much more adventurous about touching the animals than Sydney was. The girls got to climb on tractors and get ice cream. The food science department is kind of famous for their ice cream that they make and they give it away for free there. Sydney ventured out and had strawberry which was a surprise and Mollie had chocolate. I just had a bite, can you believe it? A big hit also with them was drinking water out of little paper cones from a cooler.

Mom's been here since Tuesday. It's her Spring Break. She's going to the Wake Co. job fair tomorrow so lets pray that that goes well and that she'll soon have a job here.

Last night I had a fun group of ladies over here for a mom night out. We met in the basement and ordered a lasagna, salad, and breadsticks from Daniel's Pizza Pasta. Yum. It was so much fun. They were here until around 11! When a bunch of women show up with Blue Moon, oranges and a game called Dirty Minds you know it's going to be a good time:)

Oh, and my sister Courtney sent me this, it's a really neat about advice from parents to kids. Check it out:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/parents-know-best-the-contest-winners/?ex=1209182400&en=90e6961c4b276528&ei=5070&emc=eta1

recent sleep developments

Well, after a week of no nap for Sydney I don't think it's coming back:( It's very sad. She does have quiet time in her room for about an hour. I'm not sure how long she'll go for that. We tried something to get her to continue napping--sleeping on the top bunk of her bunk beds. Which we had been set on her not doing until she was 5. She tried very hard to fall asleep, but "was having trouble". So now she just has to be quiet and look at books and play with whatever her imagination can handle up there (which is a lot). Last night she wanted to sleep up there for bed time. I wasn't going to let her, but Phil said we could use it to our advantage b/c it could be a reward. If she's getting into trouble she has to sleep on the bottom again. And I started not to worry so much about safety when she showed me how she could easily climb up and down the side of her bed closest to the wall with no ladder! So we got out the ladder and take it away after her quiet time and in the morning b/c Mollie is NOT allowed to get up there. Also, we explained that it's not a place to play. You don't get up there unless it's a rest time. No friends up there or playing on the top bunk.

I told her that she has to let me know in the mornings before she is coming down so that I can watch /listen out for her. Our room is downstairs and theirs are up so we have a 2 way monitor so we can talk back and forth like walkie-talkies. She also very rarely gets up during the night so that's not a big concern. This morning she said, "mommy, can I come down now?" And she did and she was so happy.
So, this is just another way you break your own rules as a parent! I'm sure there will be more.

We eventually plan to move Mollie in there with her. We have the small dresser built in to the bed and a seperate dresser with mirror, plus a good size closet. Hopefully that will be enough room for their stuff. Well, it will be if I stay out of Old Navy and Gymboree;) We thought they would enjoy sleeping together for a while as they get a little older. Since they're both girls and so close in age. And I think you learn a lot from sharing a room. Then if they're like 12 and want to be seperate again, that's fine, we have the room.

Now Sydney goes to bed at 7:30 if she has no nap. Mollie gets to "stay up late" until 8 because she takes a nap. If Sydney decides one day to nap we'll let her stay up too, maybe until 8:30!!
Here is a picture of Sydney on the top bunk. You can see part of Mollie looking very sad at the bottom of the ladder!