Chronicles of a grumpy.....

This is a bit of a saga here, so bear with me. There is a McDonald's close to our house that has a indoor play land. As you can imagine, we are frequent visitors to this place. It also happens to be close to a neat park with an awesome track and field, so in warmer weather we play at the park and get drinks at McDonald's. Anyways, many of you may know that they hire many special needs individuals to keep the place clean etc. I think this is great! However, this particular location has managed to hire a very cute man with Downs Syndrome. EVERY person with Downs that I have ever met is like a cuddly teddy, friendly, easygoing, like able. Except for this man!! He is SO grumpy! Once we were there and this Christian day care came in. They were saying a group prayer about what a great day this was. He stood beside me mumbling, "Nothin' great about this day, don't know what you kids are talkin' 'bout." I about lost it trying to contain my laughter! It seemed like such an oxymoron to me! Well, today we were there and my friend said to him, "What's wrong?" (Evidently he was staring at her). He tapped the table we had all our coats on and said, "I have to WORK here!" We moved our coats and her grumped his way around wiping up tables. THEN a school bus arrived and this cute Downs man mumbles, "This place is going to H*** in a hand basket." I about spit diet coke through my nose! He then followed that by saying, "All it does is these kids make more work." It made my day! I hope no one thinks I am making fun of this man because I am not. We smile at him and talk to him etc... I just think his grumpiness is great!
On a completely different note, the girls met one of their heroes tonight... Curious George!!! The four year old just kept giggling and hugging him! They would not speak to him, so I was. I told the four year old to tell him about ballet and she said, "Why don't you mommy? You've been talking to him all day here." How can you argue with that logic???????

Tuesday

I am so excited because my husband is almost done with his classes! I wish I knew what we were doing after that, but no such luck.
The girls were really good today. I let them play outside by themselves for a little while and they thought that was pretty cool! They are thrilled with all our Christmas decorations, the tree and the music. Our three year old loves listening to music. She taps that little foot and bops her head in time with the music. So cute! Our four year old likes the Christmas books. We store them with our decorations and pull them out the day after Thanksgiving. It's like a mini-Christmas because they have not read these books in a year.
We are all good here. No cutesie stories, healthy, happy and ready for a new day!

Back to normal

Unfortunately life returns to normal tomorrow. Our company is gone, Thanksgiving is over and we go back to work after several days off. Yuck. On a positive note.... we had a great time with my husband's sister!! The girls loved having her here and hated to see her go. I have posted a few photos from her visit with us.
After she left, we came home and spruced up the house so that we could host our small group Bible Study here. That went great and we all had a super time!!
I had a funny moment tonight. We were reading to the girls before bedtime. I was reading them this book ALL about how THE BEST THING ABOUT CHRISTMAS IS JESUS!!!!!!!! So, we get to the end and for the 20th time I read, "so the best thing about Christmas is..." (and I leave a pregnant pause for our four year old to fill in) and she screams, "ME!" Oh my. We have some work to do here! =0

Playing in the Leaves

Hiking With Aunt

Tea Party

Dancing like a princess

I was reminded of an event that happened shortly before I began blogging. I thought I would share it with everyone. One evening we were at the bookstore and the girls were dancing and singing on the stage. They were twirling and do ballerina moves when my husband walked up with our coffee drinks. Our four year old cam up to him with shiny blues eyes, tilted her head up at him and said, "Could you please dance with me Daddy? Like a Prince does? With your hands here and mine here?" He looked at me for rescue, but I said, "You have to do it." So he whisked her around the stage turned dance floor and was immediately transformed from daddy to Prince Daddy. It brought tears to my eyes!!!!
Today was fun! My husband and his sister took the girls to a place to play. I went with my dad and sister shopping. I found some great deals! Then we came back and his sister treated us to a yummy lunch. My husband and the girls blew leaves and played in them. His sister and I went shopping and sight-seeing with my parents. We came back and decorated our house and tree. We topped off the night with our traditional pizza dinner and it was magical!!!!!!

Sugary Sweet

Today was Thanksgiving 2007! It was such a great day. I have not even set foot outside our front door all day long. We spent the day with my family and my husband's sister. My first turkey turned out wonderfully! My husband is very excited about all the leftovers.
After my family left, we put the girls down for naps. Then we woke them up and they put on aprons that their grandma made for them. We baked Applesauce Oat muffins. All of us dressed up and we had a tea party with them!! We set up their princess table with fine china from my mee-maw! It was great!
Now they are with their aunt in their room having a pajama party!!! I believe they are playing candyland and dolls. In a little while, we will get them and rescue their aunt, but she really is sleeping on their trundle bed tonight!!! I think all that adds up to the perfect Thanksgiving!!
After the girls are in bed, we are watching "Survivor" and breaking out the last of the homemade tiramisu ice cream cake!!!!! What a great day! So many things to be thankful for!

Big Day

Today was a HUGE day for our girls! They started off with a gym class (translation: 1 hour of hard play with a trained teacher), off to McDonald's where they played with 3 boys for 2 hours, home for a supposed nap BUT.... their aunt finally arrived! They had been waiting for years for this magical moment to arrive and now it is here!!!! They all loaded into our van and my husband, the girls and his sister went kayaking together. After they got home we cooked and then went to the local ice cream store. Needless to say they were EXHAUSTED! It was a great day though and I am VERY excited for tomorrow! I am cooking my first ever turkey.
I am also thankful for my family and the fact that my husband and sister are able to enjoy each other. It has not always been that way. Evidently when he was born, she made several attempts at taking his life. They have come such a long ways. =) But, seriously, when they were gone, I was thinking how great it is that he considers my parents, his parents; and then his sister comes and he is equally excited about spending quality time with her. He worked late into the night last night so he could be here early today and see her. I just think he's a great guy!!!
Happy Early Thanksgiving!!!!!!!!!

Holes

Evidently, this whole cat walk thing has been HUGE to our friends 5 year old daughter. I guess she has been frantically searching their house looking for holes. She cannot fathom that every house might NOT have a cat walk in it. I think if she was strong enough she might start banging holes in their walls or floors. That just tears me up! Their kids are so darn cute!
Tonight the big thrill in our house was the capture of a baby lady bug named "Leeda". She now lies trapped in the girls room in a small rubber container where they can watch her all night long.
For me the bog thrill was going downstairs to their toy room. I found the girls decked out in dress up clothes. Necks dripping with jewels, lacy tutus, fluffy sleeved purples dresses and the three year old sitting at little pink vanity brushing her hair with a "My Little Pony" brush. I said "You girls look so pretty. What are you doing?". Our four year old looked at me and said (in all her decked out finery) "Rocking baby Jesus in my arms." Are you a puddle on the floor yet?

Quiet Wind

On Thursday I went with my oldest daughter and her school to walk donated food to a local shelter. It was a neat idea and a fun thing to do. All the kids (1-4) were dressed as Indians. Their teachers had all given them Indian names. Our daughter (who has yet to speak to ANYONE in her class) was dubbed "Quiet Wind". We were telling this to my dad over lunch today. He dubbed himself "Breaking Wind"!
On a completely unrelated note, today is our dogs birthday! She is one year old today! The girls had to sing to her this morning. The dog did not know whether to be happy or scared.
My husband and I rented the movie "Amazing Grace" last night and it is a really good movie. If you ever get the chance to rent it.
No other news from our end! We are looking forward to Thanksgiving! My husband's sister is coming down for a few days. The girls are VERY excited to have their aunt here.

Cat Walk

We have a cat walk inside our house. It sits under the "activity shelf" in our dining room. The cat walk is actually an old vent cover that my husband pulled out and then he rigged some carpet covered ramps into the basement. Our cats food and litter box are down there. You could come into our house and never even know that a cat lives here. So tonight I had out two girls plus three other children over here. They were beyond thrilled with the cat walk. The oldest child said, "WOW! I wish our house had holes in it! Do you think there are any other holes in your house that we could play in?" It is amazing what kids find cool!! I guess at this point you can imagine hoe the next few hours were spent. We "built" a cat walk in the living room and I spent the rest of the evening chasing "Rainbow", "Flower", "Cupcake" and "monster" into their cat hole so they could walk "down" there cat walk. I am exhausted. Oh yes, FYI, the other girls picked the cutesy names and it was our sweet three year old who chose "monster" for her name.

Sandwich

Do you like my husband's sandwich? When our youngest daughter was about 18 months old, he was sitting with them eating this particular sandwich. She started saying, "bunny, bunny". He said quite condescendingly, "Honey, this is a sandwich." UNTIL he turned it and saw... a bunny! Since that point in time we have discovered that she really is artistic and it showed at 18 months!!

Great day

It is so nice to have a great day under my belt again!! Today our oldest had preschool and the youngest and I went to my mom's group. Then we met my husband in downtown for coffee (us) and ice cream (them). On such a blah rainy day it was so special. Then the girls and I went to a consignment store and I found their winter hat for a great price. They were able to get their hair cut at the local beauty school and we went shopping at Kroger's. I made dinner and our oldest said, "Thank you for this yummy dinner. You must make too many delicious meals huh?" Such brownie points she earned with that statement! Now my husband is at class BUT he was able to leave the computer for me to use.
I guess the only downside to the whole day was the abnormal amount of unhappy people at Krogers. Usually they are the elderly people. I must have said "excuse us" to at least 5 people who were in my way and they just ignored me. Does anyone else ever run into this or am I alone? I also met some abnormally happy people. Even the elderly man behind us in line was happy and we had 3 separate transactions!!

Still recovering

My husband and I are still recovering from our colds. I am ready for bed! I just had to post these photos of the girls! I had a doctor appointment today, so he took them to ballet and snapped these pictures of them! I think they look adorable!
Our youngest daughter has this penchant for getting out of bed before she falls asleep and coming to where we are. We think she is checking to see if my husband is there or at work. Last night we were at our wits end and she came out AGAIN. I was ready to go give her a spanking and a talking to. She beams her big brown eyes at me and says, "I thought I could just sleep on the floor because I am sad and need my daddy to hold me." So he goes in to hold her and she said, "Can you hold me this big for a minute?" Can someone please tell me how you get mad at that?

Another shot

Ballet Beauties

Words

My husband went with my dad to a conference this weekend, so the girls and I packed up and went to spend the weekend with my mom and sister. We had a good time. We did some early Christmas shopping, ate Mexican food and hit some stores. Nothing really noteworthy happened. My mom and I spent two wonderful hours talking with very few interruptions. It was grand!!!
I did recall a thought I had wanted to share on our youngest. She has trouble pronouncing certain words. But it is so cute!! For "nasty" she says, "masty". BUT if you say, "Did you say 'masty'"? She will say, "NO! I said, 'masty'". Obviously she hears them correctly and knows them, they just come out silly. She has one really cute sentence though. "I need another tennis shoe to wipe my fnot". I will see if you know what she means!

Still here

My husband has been extremely busy with the elections etc. that he has been covering! I have not had much access to our computer.
Really, you have not missed too much from our lives. My husband and girls are feeling much better and now I am feeling pretty crummy!
Our oldest had her first mini field trip to a fire station. She told me there was a puppet show and I said, "Oh did they talk about fire safety?" Her eyes swallowed her face and she said in a COMPLETELY awe-filled voice, "MOMMY, how did you know?!?!?!?!?!" It was cute!!!
Wow, I really have an amazing lack of news and cute stories! However, tomorrow is a new day, so please stay tuned!

Looking up

Today things are looking better. My husband took our three year old to church, allowing her to burn off MUCH excess energy. I have spent the morning lysoling, laundering, sterilizing and dish washing. Ok, so maybe those aren't real words, but you get the picture. You may think that doesn't sounds like much of an improvement. However, after spending last night on a sleeper sofa with a feverish, twisty little body, it FEELS like an improvement! Luckily she has not been sick in almost 10 hours, so I think she is over the hump. Her energy is still real low, but that has given me time to get all this cleaning done. My reward comes in the form of getting to leave the house around 2 today! YEA!!!!
Just a little sidebar, there is no such thing as a good time change when you have kids, but especially when you have sick kids! Boooo! Down with the time change!!! =)
Oh, yes, one more thing. Last night after such a gross day, my husband and I were relaxing downstairs with a little television time. Guess what happened? THE DOG PUKED!

Pukish Post

I am sorry to have been so deliquent in my blogging, but we have had a sick week here. Our three year old puked 6 times and has had strange bathroom type problems which have required my assistance in wiping. Our four year old projectiled in the van today. For a lovely visual... she was in the back and her "stuff" hit the front window. She had since gotten sick on the couch, floor, blankets, towels and a few times the garbage can. Meanwhile, admidst the puking, cleaning and wiping, I can hear my husband hacking his lungs out.
That has pretty much been my week.
There was at least one cute moment. Our three year old had never had a flu bug before. She threw up real close together and without a trace of pity, remorse or sadness but AFTER a huge incident she says, "Maybe I will just keep doing this forever and it will be like this every day."