No Soliciting

A Friend gave us this comic, which hangs on our fridge, I was thinking the sign would be a nice addition to our yard, I have been looking for something to detour the solicitors, what do you think, would it work? LOL ( cartoon drawn by James Estes, I imagine it was clipped out of a newspaper)

Wand of Power...

Hmm, are you thinking this looks more like a mask to be used with a nebulizer? If you were not thinking that or have no idea what I am talking about your child/children must have been lucky enough to make it through the early years without getting RSV or Croup,(not whining, but perhaps a bit jealous) we on the other hand know oh to well what this mask is for. After weeks now of being sick on and off, things were finally starting to look up, everyone was feeling and acting human again, until yesterday, when our sweet pea started coughing again, it was a little cough nothing to note first thing Friday morning and was gone by 9:00ish only to return at about 6:00ish that night with a vengeance, she started coughing and by 11:00 we were in the ER, lucky for us kids her age get a bit of special treatment at the ER, we did not have to sit with the general population or wait in line with the general population, even though that population was quite big, we were whisked away before we had even finished the paper work to sign her in, and our Attending is a member of our Stake Presidency, whom Doug and I have both met with so that made things even better, considering our child was struggling to breathe and couldn't stop coughing.  Seriously I am not sure this Nursery thing is going to work out for us, Addy LOVES going, but she has been twice in our ward and both times has brought home some nasty crud and shared, so we were sick with a cold that hung around for two weeks, and now we have picked up Croup, which is highly contagious,(not that I or Doug will get Croup but we can catch the virus that is responsible for croup, and by the sound of my cough and increased irritability I would say that is what is happening) so we will be home bound for another week, maybe longer, we will see how it goes. She did get a steroid to help her fight it off and be able to breathe better, which has pretty good results usually, but that is all we could do for her, normally she would get a neb treatment as well but since she has a history with the RSV med's she was given, we opted not to use a cousin drug, they tried just giving her a saline treatment to see if that would ease the breathing, she did okay with the treatment, but the turtle was used more as a part of her routine in entertaining us while in the ER then to actually breathe out of, she had good fun with it, once she was feeling a little better and breathing a bit easier. Late night trips to the ER sure make for tired families though, We are all exhausted today, wonder if that wand of power can fix that? ( I am glad Addy is doing okay, but I feel quite horrible that we were at a friends house for dinner when the coughing started, yeah that was a lovely call to make this morning, thanks for having us for dinner and by the way we brought Croup with us as an uninvited guest, hope we can still hang out once your three little ones recover? OH I hope that don't get it, although one of their kids was in nursery last week too, so she was probably already exposed to it, as we are about 99% sure that is where we got it)

Just because.... Doug Brought me flowers this week not really knowing just how Crazy this week was going to get, lucky me, they sure are beautiful and the days I have just wanted to curl up and cry, they have come in quite handy to cheer me right up. What a week. Can we please be done with the CRUD of all sorts for awhile, I seriously am ready to move on.

Our Little Helper Bee

We have been hard at work (what days we haven't been sick more on that to come) trying to get some things done around the house, normal chores and upkeep on the house. The deck badly needed to be re-stained so Doug was taking care of that with Addy's help which really means in this instance he worked on re-staining the deck while she ran up and down the stairs and played in the yard, but it was still quite helpful to Mom.

Even if she got a little stain on her.

She has also been helping with rinsing the dishes for me, although again there seems to be something amuck with the help, she crys when the dishes are done, and wants to keep playing in the water, which might be okay if she wasn't tall enough to turn the spout on which is her favorite part, for days now every time she has free will she runs to the sink and trys to get the water on and the chair in the right spot, at least she was helpful with the dishes, I am not sure about this water business though?

She loves to wash her hands ( a good thing)

Still at it, yep she is one good helper bee who just managed to get herself out of helping with the dishes for awhile, the 30 minute breakdowns when the dishes are done are proving to be too much for this Mom.

And helping Dad blow up her new toy,  a little pool, she loves to stomp in the water and is good with playing in it everyday as long as she doesn't have to sit in it, funny girl, she gets wet head to toe but the the sitting must be too cold or something

What a Great little helper we have, she loves to help us with whatever we are doing. And sometimes it is actually quite nice to have an extra set of hands....

A Princess...

The other day I was at our Fabric Store (which I am not usually all that impressed with so I won't tell you the chain name) But nonetheless it is a fabric store and although they generally have high prices and slim pickings, I was on a mission, I am trying to use up most if not all of the scraps and Rem's in my house, and I needed a few coordinating pieces of material to make progress happen, and to my surprise while I was there all the fabric was 50% off including rems (making it a much better price, not a steal of a deal but reasonable) and their other random merchandise was also marked down quite a bit. I found this darling princess set for Addy for DIRT cheap. Addy was THRILLED, she went down for a nap looking a bit like Raggedy Addy and woke-up to fine princess attire, earrings, bracelets, shoes, skirt and necklace the whole shebang.... (she happened to still be wearing her  princess PJ shirt. Worked perfect!

One happy girl!(Even if I didn't fix her hair for the fun)

Showing her dance moves!

And back to real life where she obviously works so hard, at least it looks like it in this picture, must be one heavy empty bag

Running free in the yard, even princesses need free time to roam barefoot in the yard

At least she is keeping it real, although she does make one cute princess! (she never did figure out the shoes, she loves shoes, but just can't seem to walk in heals yet)

A Trike!

Back in May, Oh my, we got Addy a Trike! She loves it and everyday wants to ride on it. There are only a few catches to this scenario... 1 We live at the top of a cauldasac (not sure how to spell) with, our drive way, cemented areas and front yard  all  being quite steep, We don't really like to let her walk out there on her own let alone be on wheels, so the trike for now is an indoor toy. 2. She had to learn to pedal as Mom can only stand on her head for so long, which over the past couple of weeks has really come along, she does quite well actually, If she has her shoes on, she still needs a bit of coaching but it's coming, now if she could only learn to steer, The steering issue means Mom and Dad are still on their heads regularly maybe we will try taking the trike to the park ( a flat park) she can ride it there and run into the trees instead of our walls? Oh how we love the trike though, it has been such fun! (when we got it we were at grandma and grandpa H's house and their upstairs is a go through meaning you can go in a big circle through all the rooms, SHE LOVED that, our house is a little different, but she still has a GREAT time with it, I am glad we decided to give it a try)

Altered

A few months ago we were at a friends house, she was mentioning that she had taken a new interest in sewing, I asked Why her response made so much sense, she noted that she has three little girls and she would more then likely need to alter their clothes their entire lives and she would like to be good at it, rather then just get through it, the next week at church I noted the little girls that were dressed modestly, most of which had either homemade dresses on or dresses that had been altered to be more modest, all of which were just as cute as those dresses that hadn't been altered. After thinking about it for awhile, I couldn't believe the conclusion I came to and was kind of shocked it hadn't come to me before. Our little one grows like a weed and dresses go almost as fast as shoes, trying to keep dresses that are long enough/ modest seems like a regular challenge in our home, we do bloomers, and whatnot, but we are both a bit old fashioned and just don't think one can be taught modesty soon enough in life. So, I have decided like my friend I would like to be GOOD at altering dresses/clothes as needed or making them whatever, I am starting small though with altering, I took an online class on making sleeves, and I am taking a class here on altering clothes, not to mention I had My Mom who is fabulous at sewing help alter this dress that Doug's Mom made for Addy. We just love the dress and wanted her to be able to wear it for awhile, but it like so many of her clothes was a little short, I  have learned some techniques that have already been quite helpful! I am sure I too will be altering clothes a good portion of her life, let's be honest she is more then likely always going to be tall, and clothes seem to just be getting shorter and shorter? This Dress turned out just Fabulous,  not that I can take much credit for that, Thanks Georgene for the Adorable Dress, and Thank you Mom for helping extend the life a little longer. Addy LOVES it! Here's to improving my sewing /altering skills! More to come!

These are some of Addy's 18 month pictures. She is such a ham!

Spoons and Strollers!

This girl Amazes me, so about a week ago she decided that it would be utensils to eat or no eating at all. She seriously taught herself to use the spoon in about a weeks time, (previously she held it in her left hand while she ate, not really sure what to do with it, then all the sudden she was eating with it) and does so well with it. She is now offended if we give her finger foods and expect her to actually use her fingers? The Audacity of it all..... She has lately just been making leaps and bounds on her development, and she wants nothing more then to be a BIG Girl, Which in terms of height she defiantly is, we took her in for her 18 month check up and she is 1/2 inch shy of 3 feet, I just can't believe it and we just last week grew out of another shoe size, but we have finally gotten back on the charts for head circumference maybe the rest will come should she decide to slow down?

This last week we have still been working on fighting this horrible cold we caught, so we have stayed home from play groups and the library, and anything else that wasn't necessary in hopes to not spread the gunk, or pick up something else, there is so much going around our town right now and we are definitely compromised, anyways that means a lot more creative play at home, when there is no outside supplementing, Addy has picked up running laps around the house with her stroller to burn energy, she finds it quite entertaining, as do I. We got her the stroller and a baby in hopes to help her start learning about babies and well being nice to people smaller then her in general, as you can see the stroller is empty, Everyday I put the baby in the stroller and everyday she takes it out by its feet and throws it aside, usually replacing it with items she loves, like books, her water, and other random items around the house, the good news is that she is doing much better with kids smaller then her, the bullying seems to be phasing out, and when she saw a baby at church today she was VERY SWEET, OH,  there is hope.