Tag: evie

As If Disney Wasn't Getting Enough of My Money Already

Published by dee on July 6, 2009

Yesterday afternoon I realized we were short on diapers, plus Evie was running a fever and had just taken the last dose of Motrin so I decided we needed to make a quick trip to the store. Since it was near lunch time, I decided we might as well all go grab some lunch and then stop at Target on the way home (yeah, I took my sick baby out to eat and to Target). It really all started out quite innocently.

So while we’re roaming the aisles of Target to get the essentials that we need, we happened across some kid-sized fleece blankets that were on clearance. I’ve been meaning to get Evie a new blanket because her only larger sized blanket is a double thickness fleece blanket and it is really a bit too warm for summer. I couldn’t find any prices marked on the clearanced blankets, so I decided to look down the next aisle to see if there were any others marked down. I spotted a couple that I liked – a generic flowery one and a cute pink and brown Hello Kitty blanket. I held them up for Evie to pick the one she liked and she swatted them away with her hand. She then proceeded to point at the Disney Princesses blanket on the shelf and make her sounds that say “I want that one!” At least it was blue instead of pink.

Score: Mommy-0, Disney-1

So we travel on down the aisle and end up near the toys where Daddy and Zach get very distracted with some Transformers. Evie and I keep walking until we reach the shoe section. Her last round of shoes are all starting to get a bit tight, so I thought I would see if I could find a cheap pair or two and start moving her to the next size up. As I searched for a good bargain, Evie was busy picking out her own pair of shoes. The first pair she pointed and grunted at were cute, but too small for her. We kept searching. I found a cute, sensible pair of tennis shoes that would work, but she would have nothing to do with them…because she discovered the Disney Princess tennis shoes next to them. She started screaming for the Princess shoes. They weren’t so bad and they were tennis shoes so I gave in.

Score: Mommy-0, Disney-2

While she hugged her Princess tennis shoes I continued to dig through the racks searching for some cheap sandals. That’s when she spotted these:

princessshoes
The look of sheer joy on that girl’s face was indescribable. The look disappeared real quick and turned into a murderous scream when I tried them on her and then attempted to take them back off. I tried to convince her that hte silver Circo brand ones (that were exactly the same other than the color) were better but she wasn’t having it. She insisted on the pink ones. She wore them all the way through the store, allowing me to take them off only long enough for the guy at the check-out counter to scan the tag. Oh, and guess what they have inside the shoe??? Disney Princesses. They have barely left her feet since we bought them, even though the straps are starting to rub blisters on the top of her feet.

Score: Mommy-0, Disney-3

Apparently I’m just not going to win at this game. Up until yesterday, there were no princesses in my house, unless you count Tinkerbell, but technically she’s a fairy. She really hasn’t been exposed to princesses at all, yet she suddenly loves them. I have no idea how my daughter turned out to be such a girly girl. I guess she’ll just have to play in the mud in her sparkly princess shoes.

Yes, I’m a bit of a sucker, but if her brother is going to be dressed head to toe in Lightning McQueen I guess I better just get used to princesses too. What can I say? I like seeing my kids happy.

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A Much Needed Vacation

Published by dee on June 23, 2009

So I know it’s been like two weeks since I updated this thing, but I have good reasons. I was on VACATION! A glorious, relaxing, no-internet kind of vacation. We drove down to Texas to attend Hubby’s cousin’s wedding (with no A/C in the car!) which was fabulous. Then spent the next week just chilling out at a cabin on Lake O’ The Pines with the in-laws. We had so much fun. Evie loved playing with her cousin Mikayla. Zach got to go fishing for the first time with Papa. We all went swimming in the warm lake water, rode around on a pontoon boat, relaxed, and just enjoyed each other’s company. It was just what we needed.

I took about a bazillion photos (ok, more like 500) which you can see the best of on Flickr, but here are a few of my favorites:

Jason & Chelsea saying their “I Do’s”

Evie & Daddy

Hubby with his Dad and Brother

Zach Fishing

Evie begging for “up”

My beautiful niece Mikayla

Zach on the boat

This week we’re adjusting back to our “normal” schedules, catching up on tons of laundry, and preparing for another quick trip out of town and a big birthday party this weekend. I’m hoping things will slow down soon so I can get back to regular posting here. However, it appears that while we were gone my baby girl turned 15-months-old and somehow my other baby is turning 4 years(!) old on Friday, so you can expect some mushy Mama stuff the rest of the week!

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Summer Goes Too Fast

Published by dee on May 27, 2009

What? You say it’s been a week already since I posted last? Nonsense. Oh, wait. It has. Let’s just say I’ve been a little busy. It’s not even officially summer yet and I already feel like it’s almost gone. We’re hitting that fun time of year when Hubby’s work suddenly picks up and he works late nearly every night. This leaves me to try to cook dinner by myself for two little screaming banshees who are starving when I pick them up from day care. Then they must have baths because they are filthy from playing outside in the dirt. Then they want to watch TV, read books, wrestle, hold me, play games, have a snack, and all kinds of other requests, cleverly delaying bed time because it isn’t dark yet! Therefore, bed time gets pushed back nearly every night almost an hour past when it should be which means that I lose my precious me time and by the time I do get there my brain is fried. Oh, and on top of that Evie is cutting her molars (3 in one week!) and has been more cranky and clingy than usual too.

(They’ve been very lovey with each other lately)

I have all these post ideas in my head, but I just can’t seem to find the time or the mental energy to get them out. I owe Miss Evie a 14 month letter, which I have started and can’t seem to finish. I have several one line drafts that haven’t progressed at all. Plus, I started thinking about the fact that Zachary will be 4 years old next month and I am sitting around wondering how in the heck that happened? He was just a baby, like last week right? And holy cow, I have another birthday party to plan and haven’t even started!

Regardless of how stressed out I am, we did manage to cram in some fun over Memorial Day weekend (which is the real point of this post). Thanks to Jenny over at Savvy Source, we got some free tickets to Jiggle Jam. We took the kids on Saturday, which just happened to be probably the hottest day of the year so far. Besides the fact that we spent the entire day melting in the sun, we had a lot of fun. Evie loved the music and Zach enjoyed playing in the bounce houses and fountains. We met up with Cagey and her two adorable kiddos for a while, which I really enjoyed. It was great to see them outside of the computer screen for a change! The kids’ babysitter, her sister, and nephews were there as well and we enjoyed visiting with them too.

Evie likes bellies. Anjali is not amused!

On Sunday, we headed up north to visit my dad and his wife at her parents’ home. They were staying there for the weekend and invited us up for a BBQ. My brother and sister and their families were there as well and we had a great time playing with the kids and just enjoying each other’s company.

Monday we stayed home and celebrated Memorial Day by cleaning the house. Exciting, huh? It had to be done, so it was nice that we had an extra day to fit it in.

Oh, and I should also mention that I read an entire book over the weekend. I only mention it because this is not something I normally do. It usually takes me about a month to find the time to read an entire book. This one, however, I just could not put down. Now I can’t wait to get my hands on the follow-up. I’ve been doing a lot more reading lately and I’m really enjoying it. I guess it’s the one good thing that comes from Hubby staying up late at night playing WoW.

And a few more pics for good measure…

My adorable niece, Caitlin

The girls messing up the T-ball game

A cute picture turned into an awesome picture thanks to the editing skillz of my friend Jen

P.S. If you’ve made it this far, then please go check out my latest review and giveaway! It’s a perfect gift for the little girl in your life! (Yes, family members can enter too!)

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Best. Day. Ever.

Published by dee on May 17, 2009

Yesterday I took a personal day off of work. The kids’ sitter took a vacation day so instead of stressing out trying to find someone to take her place, I just decided to ask for the day off and spend it with the kids. I wanted to do something fun, just me and them.

We slept in, had a nice slow morning, then headed off to Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead a little after 10:00. I went back and forth trying to decide what to do but finally decided on that because, well, it’s free. I figured Evie would love the animals (she’s really into our dogs and cats right now) and Zach would love the playground. I was a little nervous because I only took the single stroller, but Zach said he wanted to walk.

We had a great time walking around checking out all the animals. Zach was a little bummed that I didn’t have change to buy food to feed the goats (though we remedied that later), but instantly cheered up when he remembered the barn with the slides. I loved being able to let him play and not having to rush. While he went down the slides over and over again, Evie wandered around checking out the geese, ducks, and rabbits. She’s really starting to love being outside and it was fun watching her explore.

After that, we walked a bit more and decided to stop for some lunch. The kids played at a toddler sized playground for a bit, then we did some more walking, checked out even more animals, until finally we stopped at the BIG playground and let the kids play until they were completely worn out and it was looking like we were going to get rained on.

Just before we left, Zach yelled out, “This is the BEST. DAY. EVER!!!” I couldn’t have agreed with him more. The weather was perfect. The kids were extremely well behaved. We all had a really great time together. It was relaxing and exhausting all at the same time. It was perfect.

And, to top it all off, we stopped at Target on the way home for a few things and just happened to find a toy that Zach had been promised over a month ago (that we hadn’t been able to find in stock anywhere). He was over the moon excited.

I just wish we could have days like that every day.

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I ♥ Faces – Week 17 – Hats

Published by dee on May 5, 2009

This week’s I ♥ Faces weekly challenge requires a hat in the photo. I swear sometimes these photos just happen at the right time. We were playing around the other night at home and Evie kept trying to put her brother’s pajama pants on her head (she loves to dig in the laundry baskets!) so I put them on her like a hat. She loved it! She kept laughing and every time they came off she wanted them back on. I grabbed the camera, snapped a few shots, and ended up with this one that I absolutely love. Even though it’s not a traditional “hat” I thought it was perfect for this week’s photo entry.

Don’t forget to check out the other entries over at I ♥ Faces!

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13 Months

Published by dee on April 27, 2009

Dear Evie,

You turned 13 months old just over a week ago. Your 13 month birthday came and went with little fanfare since it just happened to fall the day after we buried your Great Grandfather “Papop”. Since our last minute trip to Louisiana, I haven’t had any free time to sit down and write your monthly letter so I’m going to try to do this as quickly as possible just so I can have something to look back on years from now.

It seems there is something magical about that 1st birthday. Until the day you turned one you were still my little baby. Now you’re suddenly a big girl – one that walks, and talks, and wants to feed yourself without any help. It’s all going by so fast that I can barely keep up. At your one year wellness check you were 31 1/4 inches tall and weighed 22 lbs 11 oz. It seems that nearly every day you have outgrown another outfit or pair of shoes.

A little over two weeks ago you stopped nursing. We had been weaning gradually, but it didn’t seem you really wanted to let go quite yet of your special time with Mama. You finally went about three days without it, then had a bad night where I sat up with you for over an hour before finally giving in and letting you nurse. After that you never really tried again. Sometimes you stick your hand down the front of my shirt (and if I dare try to remove it you let me know that is not acceptable) which seems to give you some kind of comfort. I’m sure it looks a little odd when we’re out in public, but as long as it is just a transitional thing for you I don’t mind so much. I have to admit I was a little sad yesterday when I packed away my breast pump and supplies for good. I miss it because it was our special uninteruppted time together, but at the same time I am enjoying seeing you become more independent. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying having my body to myself again too. The next stop is trying to break you from the bottles. I’m willing to give you some time on that though. The bottles still allow me to get some snuggle time in.

The only complaint I have (and really it’s only a half complaint because I don’t really mind it so much) is that you have suddenly become extremely clingy. I’m not sure if it is related to the nursing situation or just a developmental thing but you want Mama nearly all the time. When you’re in a clingy mood you will not let me put you down at all. On very rare occasions you will allow your Daddy to hold you for short periods of time, but then it is back to me. You actually cried at day care drop off a couple of times lately, which is very unusual for you because you LOVE day care (most of the time you would rather stay there than go home with me). The trip to Louisiana seemed to make the clinginess even worse. You were pretty much attached to my hip the entire time. You did eventually warm up to Granny and Papa and would get down in the floor to go play but if anyone else tried to talk to you you would latch back on to me and hide your face. That right there is part of your Mama’s personality and I really hope you are able to outgrow it because when you’re an adult you aren’t allowed to do that anymore.

You are talking more and more (when we’re at home and you aren’t being shy) and I just love listening to you. It is obvious that you are putting meaning into the words you say now instead of just repeating sounds. Just in the last couple of weeks you have started using “yes” (which is usually with a quick nod) and “no” (though it sounds more like “nah”) when I ask you a question. Sometimes you even shake your head and say “nah, nah, nah” when you get caught doing something you know you aren’t supposed to be doing. It’s so cute it makes me laugh even when I’m trying to scold you. You also say “up” when you want to be picked up or want up in your high chair to eat. Last week when I was trying to get your brother up in the morning, you patted him and said “up, up, up” until he uncovered his head and looked at you. You also say “down” when I’m holding you sometimes because you just want to be on the floor where you can play.

You are getting better and better at walking. You really want to be able to run and keep up with the big kids, but you still stumble now and then. I have noticed in the last few days that you have been able to stand yourself back up without holding on to anything though. Before long I imagine you and your brother will be racing each other through the house and I’ll be yelling at you to slow down just as I do to him.

As each month passes, I watch you and your brother get closer and closer. I love standing outside the door in the morning listening to the two of you giggle and talk together before I come in to get you up. You are starting to play together more and even though you steal his toys and frustrate him, Zach loves playing with you. I see signs of that protective big brother coming out in him and it makes me so proud. Even though he doesn’t like to admit it all the time, his actions show just how much he loves you. And that huge grin you get on your face when he talks to you? It shows just how much you love him too. It makes my heart dance with joy. I know there will come a time when the two of you fight like cats and dogs so I’m trying to soak up every ounce of love I can get now.

I am just so very proud of you and all the things you are learning. I love watching your personality develop as you get to be more independent. Even though you look more and more like your dad as you get older, you seem to get your personality more from me. It’s almost like looking into a little tiny mirror some days, which is both amazing and terrifying.

I love you with all of my heart.

Love always,
Mama

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