Last Day

Friday was our last day with Abby. I've known since day one, she'd start school at 18 months. It seemed like time just flew by. Abby was 6 weeks old when I started keeping her and Alex was just over 3 months old. I look back at the beginning and realize I had it easy! They slept and ate and didn't move around. I remember thinking, man, I'm going to be in trouble when they start rolling over, crawling, walking, running and then just getting into everything. It's been hard with two kiddos everyday, pretty much like having twins Monday-Friday from 7:45 to 5:30, but I've loved it. I love watching them interact and play together. In the last few weeks, they have been so sweet with each other. Alex shares her snacks with Abby, holds her hand and leads her around the house, hugs & kisses her and they love to play ring around the rosie together. I loved that Alex had a friend around all day long to play with. I know she is really going to miss her Abbykins. I have loved watching these two sweet babies turn into beautiful little girls!

Alex and Abby's first day

Alex and Abby's last day

Sick again!

I knew my little doll was getting sick again. She's had a cough for about a week and a half now. She was up for about an hour last night just coughing and coughing and coughing. I called the doc today and he wanted to see her. When she is sick, she is cranky, super needy, gets frustrated and mad really easily and sometimes just down right mean. Last night after dinner she only wanted me to hold her. She snuggled into me and put her head on my chest and was content to just let me hold her. I loved it. Today she was starting that again so I made her a little pallet on the floor while we waited to leave for the doctors office.

He said her lungs sound great, her ears are clear so it seems to just be a sinus like infection and he prescribed an antibiotic. I dropped off the prescription and we went to McDonald's for lunch while we waited. Alex has decided she can tolerate their fries, as long as she dips every single little bit in barbecue sauce. Even with that, she doesn't intentionally eat the fry, she sucks the barbecue off and re-dips it. Yummy, sick toddler double dipping in my sauce. It quickly became her sauce. She ended up eating a few fries, almost a whole container of barbecue sauce and about 1/2 of a hamburger.

Shimmy Shimmy Shake

I mentioned a few weeks ago that when Alex dances, she sits still but moves her shoulders from side to side. This morning, she started doing a fast shoulder shake that cracks me up! The first time she did it, I thought she was cold and it was just a shiver, but I quickly realized it's her new moves. She hasn't been feeling well today and has been running a low grade fever most of the day. Tylenol seems to be helping, but as it wears off, her fever goes right back up. She has been cranky, fussy and clingy today so I was so happy to see her having a great time with Josh while they watched videos tonight.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Josh's Beast

I helped Josh work on his Trans Am Sunday afternoon while Alex was napping. It is finally running. It still has some issues that need to be fixed before he can actually drive it, but he did get it fired up! Woo hoo!!!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Gloria

Saturday we said goodbye to an old friend who has been with Alex since she was about a week old. We bought Alex a sound machine we called Gloria (as in Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine) and she has used her every single night since. Gloria has been on every overnight trip we have taken. Her rotating projector broke long ago, but we still used it as a night light. We even plugged it into a plug with a remote so it could stay on every night until we got in bed. Alex loved the rain sound and the blue light. As soon as we'd turn it on she knew it was bed or nap time. We loved having it because we didn't have to worry about loud noises waking her up. Well, Saturday, I was vacuuming her room and caught Gloria's cord. It twisted around the roller in about 2 seconds and the cord pulled right off the plug. We moved our alarm clock in her room for her nap and last night because it plays white noise, but decided tonight we'd let her go to sleep without any white noise tonight. I guess she was going to have to get used to sleeping without it at some point so better now than later. Alex went down tonight without a peep. (But I think she's getting sick so that may have helped.)

RIP Gloria

flowers, teeth and craziness

Alex loves to climb on her little activity table. She also loves to find random object to wear as a hat. Here she is wearing the insert to her potty (clean) on her head. We have the Fisher Price frog potty and I hate it. It has eyes that stick up and make it difficult for Alex to sit on it without spreading her legs really wide. I do not recommend it...for girls at least. I don't know about boys, do they learn to potty standing up?

Josh brought us flowers today when he came home for lunch. He is soo sweet. We showed them to Alex and she immediately grabbed for them. She was very upset we would not let her grab them and pull the petals off so I cut off a little carnation and gave it to her. She loves to smell it and pretend like she is eating it!

Alex gets really cranky when she is tired. She cries over every little thing. It gave me the perfect opportunity to snap a few pics of her little teeth. They are all in! Her vampire teeth are still coming up, but for the most part, they are through the gums.

We went grocery shopping this morning. I am in a very bad habit of giving Alex a snack anytime we are at the store or she is in a cart. If I don't she is constantly trying to grab everything out of the cart. Today, I tried to keep her entertained while I shopped. We sang songs and she could clap, pat her legs and raise her hands when I asked her to. We made it through the entire store without a snack. She decided to love on Abby. She kept hugging her and trying to kiss her. When she would stop, Abby would put her head on Alex's shoulder. They are soo sweet together!

Bad Blogger

So I start every week with the intention of blogging every couple of days, then before I know it the week just gets away from me.

Rewinding a bit...
Valentine's Day. I spent most of the day in my jammies with my two sweet loves. We opened cards in bed. Alex LOVES cards. She has been carrying them around the house for a week now just looking at them...and every so often carrying them in her mouth like a dog! I made my sweethearts French Toast and we watched the Olympics and lounged around most of the day. I did end up showering and changing (back into clean jammies) before dinner. I made delicious crab cakes (from scratch!), baked potatoes and Josh made peppered bacon wrapped filets. For dessert we had fondue. Alex enjoyed picking up every piece of fruit on the plate, taking a bite then putting it back. So cute! I got my Valentine's gift early. Josh started me on my collection of Le Creuset cookware. If you've never heard of it, look it up. It is the best cookware I have ever used! I love it! It's heavy so don't drop it on your finger, like I may have done!

And after reading my stressed out blog a few weeks ago, my dear sweet hubby told me to order the Restoration Hardware bathroom stuff I wanted for Alex's bathroom so I am the proud owner of these adorable bathroom accessories! They look so cute in her bathroom!

Abby has been sick the last 2 days so Alex and I have been running tons of errands to get ready for the shower we are hosting Saturday afternoon/evening. We met Josh for lunch today and then went shoe shopping for Alex. Her foot grows like crazy and all of her shoes are a little too tight on her when she wears socks. I found a cute pair of Pedipeds I was going to get her, then as I continued to look, I spotted an entire table of shoes that were 50% off so I ended up getting her 2 pairs of Pedipeds that will hopefully last her until it gets warm enough for sandals!

Alex is starting to get better about eating, but is getting worse about drinking milk. She usually drinks a sippy of milk in the morning and spends the rest of the day taking a sip here and there of milk but usually has 1/2 a cup left of milk at the end of the day. She is getting where she wants me to hold her like a baby while she is drinking her milk, which I hate ;) Who am I kidding, I LOVE IT!!!

She is also just soaking up so much stuff. She has a picture book that she loves looking at. She can point out the train, duck, panda, monkey, teddy bear, boat, flower, kitty and ball. When she points at the train she says toot toot, ooooh oooooh when she points at the monkey, and smells the flower when she points at it. She can follow any direction we give her. A frequent one is Alex, please put the box of (whatever snack she has in her hand) back on the shelf and close the pantry door. The girl is such a snacker! She hates graham crackers, graham goldfish and teddy grahams so to remind me last week, she dumped all of them on the pantry floor while I was doing laundry. I walked in to find Abby and Cooper going to town on all the graham snacks. The girl keeps me on my toes, I can't take my eye off her for a minute!