A Summer Day

Yesterday the boy I am watching wasn't coming over so I asked Abi what she wanted to do. She wanted to go to the beach, the library, and ride her bike.

First, we headed to the beach. It was early am and it was pretty cloudy so I thought it might rain. I brought along their swimsuits just in case but dressed them in their matching sailor dresses so I could get a picture of them at the same spot that I took pictures of Abi in this dress last year.

That beach has gone down hill since we first moved here. There was garbage everywhere. So, we went down by the water, grabbed a few shots, put our feet in the water which was freezing and made Maddy cry, and then played on the toys a few minutes before leaving.

I felt bad that Abi didn't get her sandcastle building, play all day experience she wanted but maybe next time.

It turned out to be quite sunny and hot as the day went on so we probably should have gone later.

I found it really hard to get pictures of both of them because Abi would do her fake "Cheese!" face and Maddy was so mesmerized by the water that they were hardly ever looking the same direction. It was really fun though.

We spent a glorious hour at the library afterward, went to Dairy Queen and got Abi a dilly bar, and then came home where she immediately disrobed to only her skivvies, jumped in the beanbag and said, "Ahhhh... it's good to be naked."

I love this girl!

On the move

Monday morning Maddy surprised me by crawling across the floor. I put her back by the couch and she kept doing it over and over. I had to grab the camera! She wanted to get to the movies!

Here's a little video of her new accomplishment.

In case you were wondering...

I felt like maybe I should write a post about Abi and her glasses. I'm sure most of you have noticed that she doesn't ever have them on...
We started this out with her wearing her glasses almost all of the time. She would complain that she couldn't see when she was doing things like reading, doing puzzles, watching tv, being read to, etc. and would always ask for a 'break' from her glasses.
We went back to the specialist to ask her about this. I know I posted about that... about how the dr. was telling Abi "Oh you can too see this." when Abi would say she couldn't. That really made my protective side come out. I tried to talk to her about vision therapy and was just shot down. I will never go back to that dr. Even if she was right about everything having to do with Abi's eyes, I really feel that doctors need to be open and willing to discuss concerns with patients/ parents so that everyone understands and is in agreement about things.
Doug's mom suggested that we try to get her into the Moran eye clinic in Utah when we were visiting because it is really well known and highly praised. I tried but they had no availability. I did, however, get some advice from the guy on the phone to look at their website.
It never stated whether they were for or against bi-focals for children but it did have a little video to watch that showed what it is like for a child that wears bi-focals.
Basically in the video it showed how things really close (like if Abi was eating an ice cream cone or something) are in focus and it keeps her eyes from crossing when she looks at it. It showed that things far away looked fine. But then it showed how anything in between is super blurry. Basically the voice over said that anything in that middle range (books, computer, tv, people, etc) will be blurry unless they back up or get up really close to it.
This realization really made me feel bad. I knew that this is why Abi would say she couldn't see things.
I am just not sold on bi-focals.
So, we got home and I started trying to figure out what I wanted to do about it. To go anywhere besides that one particular dr, we have to have Abi on our vision plan and we can't put her on it until late fall.
As I was thinking about this I began to notice that her eye wasn't doing it anymore. What?
In almost a month I never saw her eye cross. Not once.
I was beginning to think that it had gone away whether naturally or miraculously.
Then a couple weeks ago, one night when she was really tired, she looked at me up close and there it went.
Since then she has talked to us about sometimes seeing "two of things" and we've seen it happen again a few times a day.
It is the one eye. It goes inward. Sometimes.
Doug and I just don't know what the right thing to do is.
At this point I have decided that we will put her on the vision plan as soon as it opens and I will take her for a second opinion as well as try to get her into vision therapy. Until then, when I see that her eye is starting to cross or she says anything about her vision the glasses will go on.. chances are they won't be on too much because it really doesn't happen that often and she really doesn't like her glasses. And we all know how stubborn Abi can be.
I feel guilty. Doug feels guilty. I don't know if we are doing the right thing. I don't know if the glasses make it worse or better. It seems like the more she wears them, the more her eye crosses. ughh.
Anyway, now you all know the confusion and questions that are going through our mind continually and understand in a way why you never see Abi in her glasses.

Pioneer Day WI style

Although we are not in Utah, our ward still has a get together to celebrate the pioneers on Pioneer day.

We were going to be at a park but because the weather has been so crazy this week, we ended up having it at the church building. It turned out to be a really hot sunny day but it had rained all the night before.

During the lunch part, we were inside the building. Abi had a great time playing with a hula hoop.

Then we all went outside for games. Our friend Ben was putting his kids up in this tree and soon gathered a little line of kids by his feet wanting their turn in the tree. Abi was one of the first in line!

Julie had made some really cool can stilts for a fun game but a lot of the kids didn't seem to be getting the hang of it and so they gave up on the idea and the cans were abandoned by the tree. I heard her say that she knew they worked because she had tried them at home.. so we grabbed a pair and tried them out. They were great. They were Abi's favorite part of the day!

Here Doug gave her a quick lesson on how to walk with them...

She quickly got the hang of it and played on them for quite awhile. She fell off a few times.. one time in which she actually cut her ankle... but she just kept getting back on for more! I was so happy she did. It was fun to watch.

She wasn't interested in playing some of the games but when she saw this one involved donuts she wanted in! It was so funny to watch the kids trying to catch those donuts.

She did it!!

It was a fun day. We then went home to our lovely air conditioner and relaxed the rest of the day.

Disney Family Movie Night: A Bug's Life

Maddy got to be a part of this one for awhile because for some reason she just wouldn't go to sleep! Excuse the messy background... we finally decided to get rid of the big tv and brought up a small older one from the basement so we are in the process of changing the room around to make up for it.

I decided that for the Bug's Life movie night we would go for a picnic theme. I surprised Doug and Abi by getting some KFC. I put it in our picnic basket and covered it up so they wouldn't know what it was. Doug informed me that "I couldn't cover up the smell with a towel."

So we spread out our picnic blanket and enjoyed a fun picnic while we watched the movie.

For dessert I crushed up some oreo cookies and put it on top of a scoop of ice cream and stuck in a gummy worm.

As soon as dinner was all cleaned up then we got out Cootie (the game formerly known as Woo Hoo) and had fun having bug races and play time during the rest of the movie.

Two by Two

What it may have looked like if Noahs ark had been used to house dinosaurs...

A new game for Madeline

Good Mail: Princess edition

Abi got a package from my parents this week that was just for her. She was so excited. My mom thought of her when she saw this at the Shakesperean festival and had to send it to her.

Abi loves it. She was really happy that it matched the outfit she already had on.

Dis makes me Yaf

I am pretty sure that I have blogged about, or at least mentioned, Abi's inability to prounounce the 'L' sound in most words. We now have another child here with a similar problem. While Abi prounounces L's as Y's, Noah pronounces 'TH' as 'D'. This has made for some very funny conversations between the two.

While playing with animal toys:
Noah: "Abi, will you hand me da udder one?"
Abi: "What?"
Noah: "Hand me da udder one."
Abi: "What?"
Noah: "ABI! Da udder one! Da udder one!"
Abi: "I don't understand you!"
Me: "Abi, he wants the other one."
Noah: "Yeah."
Abi: "Oh."

While pretending a little glass orb is the world:
Abi: "Noah, the woyold is yost."
Noah: "What?"
Abi: "the woyold is yost."
Noah: "What?"
Abi: "the woyold is yost."
Noah: "What are you saying Abi?"
Me: "She is saying the world is lost."
Noah: "Jeeze."
Abi: "Yeah, the woyold is yost."

The Big one

Okay, here it is.

The super secret special birthday dress for Abi. It is modeled after (but not exactly like) the pink gown in Cinderella that the mice make for her.

Don't mind the duct tape underneath the shoulder straps.. that's just the kinderquin underneath.

It will look a little different on Abi. It will be tweaked and fluffed a bit. But you get the idea.

I am so excited about this. I think Abi will love it and overall it turned out. The bows were pretty hard to put on for some reason and there were a couple of things I did differently. I forgot I needed tulle but then remembered Abi had an old slip with tulle that was stained and didn't fit anymore but she wore as a dress up. I stole it out of her dress up box, cut off the slip and sewed it to the lining/slip I had sewn for the dress. It worked great but was really hard to do because the material was so thick to sew through.

I can't wait until December!

Remember.. don't tell Abi!!!

Ask Me Anything: Lora

Lora asked, " Who is your very favorite cousin in the whole world??? :)"

Okay, Lora, are you trying to get me in trouble? If you are my cousin and you are reading this and you are not Lora .... look away now.

Lora, you are my very favorite cousin in the whole world.

I have lots of cousins and I like them... love them. But you are different. You and I have been friends for as long as I can remember.

Some of my earliest memories are visiting your house in Payson and hiding behind the doll house in the closet so we wouldn't have to leave.
We obviously became even better friends once I moved to Utah and we were able to hang out all the time. I thought it was so funny that even when I was grounded I was allowed to come to your house. My parents knew you were a good influence on me..
Thanks for never judging me or not wanting to be my friend because I was so rebellious and you were so good. Thanks for taking me as I was and being my best friend anyway. You were instrumental in my change.

I will never forget those great high school memories: not all ducks fly south for the winter (quack!), Smiths runs in our pajamas, all those boys, sleeping on the trampline (remember that night there was something out there with us and then a dead something under the tramp in the morning?), going to dances and movies, sleepovers, weekends at each others houses, road trips,etc.etc. etc..

Also, thank you for being there for me in my first marriage even though you told me that you always knew it was wrong. (and that my divorce becoming final on your birthday was a little present to you. ha.) It was pretty cool how when I told you that I was dating Doug again that you got so excited and told me you knew we were supposed to be together again. Thanks for making the long trek out for our wedding.

We haven't seen each other forever. It was so fun to talk to you the other day but it is weird to think how long it has been since we hung out in the same room just being together.
I hope you know that I am always here for you. Even if we don't see each other, I am here if you need me. I know you are there for me too.

Yes, Lora, you are my favorite cousin in the whole world.

I would put a picture of us here but I don't have one scanned. I may add one later.

Okay,Lora, here is your question:

"Who is your favorite cousin?" Haha. No. Here's a real one. "What is your favorite thing about living in Georgia?"

Update- Lora wrote a little post about us. It includes lots of silly pictures of us modeling the great fashions of the nineties. Ha. you can see that here.

You can see her post about Georgia here.

Disney Family Movie Night: 101 Dalmatians

We did movie night on Friday this week. We watched 101 Dalmatians.

This was a really fun one to plan for. I painted melted chocolate chips on our glasses and then put them in the fridge to harden and poured milk in to make them look like dalmatians.

I wrapped refrigerated biscuit dough around hot dogs and tapered the ends to look like doggy bones. We had chocolate chip cookies. And we had Cruella DeVill'ed' eggs.

After the meal, Abi made doggy ears to wear. This was a last minute thing. I had done something like this a few years ago but remembered it when I saw a post on my friend Heather's blog about her daughters puppy party. I decided Abi would really like it so we threw it together.

Once her doggy ears were done, she made herself a dog collar.

Our cute little puppy...

SHH!! DON"T TELL!

Over the next few weeks/months I am going to be making a few really special things for Abi for her birthday/Christmas and they are all surprises. I really wanted to be able to share them on here so I need to make sure I say...

PLEASE DON'T MENTION ANY OF THEM TO ABI!!!

Thanks.

So, up first...

Abi really loves Alice in Wonderland. She has been watching it over and over again. I had some blue fabric from Doug's mom that I thought would make a great Alice dress and a pattern I've had for a couple of years but never used of a dress with apron that I thought would work well for one.

Then over the 4th weekend Joanns had patterns on sale for 99 cents. I saw an actual Alice costume one that had an apron I liked much better than the one for my pattern. But, I still liked my dress pattern better than the costume one.

So, I decided to mix the two up. This proved to be harder than I thought and I ended up having to pretty much make up how to do the apron completely by myself.

Because of this I was pretty worried it wouldn't turn out.

Then I saw a while ago an Alice costume that had a key on it and I thought that was a great idea. So, I stole Abi's jewelry box key (I mean, why would she need to lock the thing anyway?) and tied it to a bow that I sewed to the dress.

Here is the finished product:

the back was the hardest part for me. I have never done a zipper before. It is pretty pathetic but it works so I'm alright with it.

the front:

It needs to be ironed and it was kind of hanging weird.. but you get the idea.

I am really happy with it. I mean, I know it isn't perfect but I don't really 'know' how to sew so I don't feel like it needs to be 'professional' quality to be beautiful.

I can't wait to show you what I'm working on right now. It is really obvious what it is though at this point so I can only sew at night.. it will be done in a couple days!

Funny

I just got this video on facebook and thought it was so funny. I love the Old Spice commercials and this is a pretty good imitation of them.

Eight Months Old

Amazing! I can't believe little Maddy cakes is eight months old!

She is such a blessing!

She is weaned now which has been a difficult decision for me but she is doing great and seems to love it! She loves food and gets so excited when she sees a bottle or package of baby food.

She is consistently sleeping through the night from around 6/6:30 to 5/5:30.

Love that!

She is so ready to crawl. She gets all over the place by just pulling herself around. She'll go up on her knees but then doesn't do that next step. Any time now....

I love the way her little nose is scrunched up in this last photo. She does that a lot!

She has no teeth yet although she has been 'teething' for months now. Every day we think we are going to see a tooth but it's never there!

She is happy, curious, loving, attentive, and so, so sweet.

Kinderquin

If you ever do 'surprise' sewing for your kids like I do then this is a must!

In the book Sewing clothes kids love the author gives a tutorial on how to make a 'kinderquin' of your child to use as you sew to try the clothes on rather than having to buy an expensive body form.

All you do is dress them in form fitting clothes that you can sacrifice to the cause and wrap them up in duct tape. Then you cut through the layers on one side, get your child out of it and tape the side back together.

There you have it... a duct tape version of your kid.

I wanted to do this because I am making a few surprise outfits for Abi for later this year and it's nice to be able to try them on something as I go along without having to show it to her plus in the past when I'm sewing late at night I don't want to go wake her up to try something on her.

It worked really well although I would recommend putting your kid in a short sleeved shirt. She had on a camisole and it was a little terrible at the end because the tape stuck to her shoulders a bit and I was feeling terrible as I took it off.

Does anyone have empty (or full for that matter) cans of baby formula I could have?

Ode to my laminator

I'm not really going to write a song or a poem about it but I LOVE this thing. This week I have been attacking my Family Home Evening books.. cutting out and laminating and re- cutting out everything. As you can see below I have my little corner in the living room that is quite messy but has been very productive. I just love the way everything is looking and this thing is so easy to use and completely quiet! I love it!

Disney Family Movie Night: UP

UP is such a great movie so we were really excited to watch it together last night. I made UP cupcakes which none of us could completely finish... turns out donut holes covered in frosting covered in sprinkles is a little too sweet. But they were cute anyway!

We had hot dogs because toward the end Dennis starts to eat a hot dog before the mean dog steals it from him. We also had fries and mini Hershey bars because they are Kevin's favorite. Our drink choice was grape soda of course.

After dinner Abi colored this UP picture and then used her scissors to turn it into a puzzle.

We did take a break near the end to go outside to look at the rainbows!

It was another fun night!

Maddy

Maddy is getting so close to crawling.I love how when she gets tired she puts her little head down for a rest!

4th of July Parade... on the 5th

Here is my attempt at getting a picture of the girls together at the parade.... this is Maddy saying, "Mom. I saw that bottle in your hand and I want it NOW!"

Abi was so excited to have it begin. She loves this small parade because they throw out candy.

It was pretty sad at first because a family showed up a while after us and their 3 kids went up by Abi... they were running all over grabbing the candy from every spot that it fell. They were fast. So, they had these bags full and Abi had one piece!

But then by the time we left she had finally figured out how to make sure she got some each time and she got quite a bit.

At these moments I try to make a note to myself to tell Abi when she gets older to make sure that the younger kids around her at things like this are getting stuff too... I think it's sad sometimes to watch all the little kids at things like this get intimidated by the older, more agressive kids.

I'm so sweet!

In this one, Abi is hiding behind Doug because that fire truck was squirting water on everyone.

These older ladies were pretty funny in their old time swimsuits. They were throwing candy but then started throwing water balloons.

Happy 4th of July!!

Thanks to all of those that made this country what it was supposed to be and all those still fighting to try and keep it that way!