santa visit

still a firm NO from adelyn...but elena did great!

"Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit." ~Kin Hubbard

restaurant etiquette

nona turned 93 the day after our birthday! so us girls had to get out and celebrate with a fancy lunch... how cute are these two?! (and heidi's bday is just a week after our's!)

and these two?

it's just too fun for us girls not to sit around, eat and laugh!!

but let me tell ya....us girls like our dessert!!

so much so that our restaurant etiquette (what we have of it) goes right out the window...

i mean, do you see that? they are fighting over tipping the plate up so that any chocolatey-cookie-ice-creamy remnants would seep down and fall into their mouth - which is WRAPPED AROUND THE PLATE!!!

not exactly a proud mommy moment...and of course screaming happened/continued every time i tried to give the plate to the waitress... but they didn't care!

they were determined to lick it all off the plate... so i stuck my head so far up my ass that i was kissing my teeth and i did my fake mommy laugh..... a.....ha......ha......ha......a...... what?! nothing going on here..... we're not making a scene at all..... swear..... a.....ha.....ha......ha.....a.

and i waited for what seemed like hours for the very embarassing, very long moments to pass while my oh-so-sweet girls licked off every morsel of dessert off the plate. ::sigh::

and somehow the only two that don't feel like stuffed pigs afterward...

"You can dress them up, but you can't take them out!" -Unknown

sleep...or lack there of

what's it called again?! ahhh, yes....sleep. i'm sure most of you have read the book circulating the web, "Go The F#@k To Sleep." well i'm pretty sure i could have written it myself. also pretty sure i'm going to have to go with the i'll-sleep-when-i'm-dead theory. and i'm getting okay with it.

little ad's been in and out of a horrible sleep phase for months and months. i really don't know how or why it went wrong, but she is proving to not be a good sleeper and it makes me very sad for her. i've struggled with sleep for as long as i can remember and it is NOT fun!

my little persistent punk...it gets to the point where you just do whatever you can for her to sleep, so ad's had more nights in our bed than we'd care for.

and she's sooo dang cute....

but she is NOT fun to sleep with. she HAS to touch you...and by touching i mean rubbing, pinching and grabbing. and she loves to be close....like forehead to forehead. which again, sweet, but not to sleep.

it wasn't every night. not even every other night. she'd go in spurts. but she'd still sleep all cozy in her crib. well.

but then in may she started showing signs that she was probably coordinated and brave enough to climb in and out of her crib... :(

then you know we had "the night." where she climbed out. a.lot. and she wound up having an improptu sister lovin' sleep over that neither of them expected.

it surprisingly went great! like really great. i mean sure ad had to be pulled out from under the dresser - twice. and woke up on the floor. but hey, she slept.

it went so well, that she hasn't returned to her room. it is sister sleep overs every night.

we tried e on the floor next to her, but ad wouldn't stop touching her so she was up back in her bed. and poor ad has trouble staying on that little matress without all those crib bars keeping her in!

so.....we did what any awesome parents would do and gave our daughter the air matress!

so that she'd stay off the floor when she slept all crazy...

but.she.slept.

and of course they played. i mean it's hard not to with air matresses, right?!

they sometimes stay up after we kiss them goodnight and i hear them whispering and quietly giggling. it always ends with elena yelling at adelyn to "go to sleep." ;)

she eventually does...

they use ad's toddler bed in her room for playing now...

and of course mommy and daddy's bed is the place to be still!

but we keep her sleeping on that air matress....well her body at least....her head might have been on the floor sometimes. we can only ask for so much, ya know?!

so we finally ordered new beds - for both! the matresses came first....and uh, they were excited.

new beds from Molly Leone on Vimeo.

and they're doing great in them! even though they're all ghetto on the floor...

with no true bedding...

but of course, my little punk.....you knew it was just a matter of time before she pulled something else out from under her sleeve...

so one day i had had enough and she had to sleep in HER room by herself...and i noticed some white socks under the door...

yep - little bugger's just used to sleeping on the floor apparently... :(

she got to go back in lanie's room...and i can't tell you how much i LOVE going in and watching them sleep. kinda creepy? yea, i know. i really do love sleeping babies. they are just such miracles....and i love to see them so peaceful and reflect on our day and think about our tomorrow...

plus, they're so sweet how close together they sleep... everyone now...awwwww!

so yea, we're kinda ghetto with our matresses on the floor. and at first it really bothered me and needed to order their beds asap. but i'm over it and who really cares. beds are ordered and we're waiting on them...

they'll both have rails....

which are needed...

i love that they're sleeping in the same room. and until just recently i was thrilled that miss ad was actually sleeping. sigh. i guess i'll also be going with the all-good-things-come-to-an-end theory.

but right now i'm going to go the f#@k to sleep. and HOPE that my little punk stays sleeping. night night.

"Sleep... Oh! how I loathe those little slices of death." ~Author unknown

big 'ole frown

:( this is a total pity party and i'm only documenting so my girls know what they are missing.

i have really lost my touch lately. in fact i feel like i've been cursed. literally everything i touch lately, i have destroyed. :(

the smallest being my stupid blow dryer....just suddenly stopped working while i was using it. and the biggest being my laptop. :(

i have no clue what i did. and i'm too computer-challenged to understand it anyways. but my hard drive completely crashed. :(

lost all my favorites, all my settings...cannot even comment on my friends blogs (sorry guys), etc. :(

and most devasting i've lost all of my pictures since january, the last time i backed them. :(

i've spent all my hours of this past week thinking of those pictures....what they were of, why i took them, what feelings they brought, the sweet and funny moments i captured. a few are on here, thank god. but i take waaaay more than what i put on here. not to mention i was way way behind in posting. :(

so i will continually add to this post as i think of those pictures....which won't mean much to anyone but me.

- i had a whole series of the girls and their daddy racing in the back yard. it was a perfect spring night and the sun was starting to set. elena was, as usual, more photogenic and i captured her determination as she won every race! she had also dressed herself that day and her outfit was less than appealing. ;) adelyn was, as usual, avoiding the camera but running her little toosh off and i captured this great one of her running past me. she looked so young and pure. her hair looked so so long and her cheeks so so chubby. ;)

- that same night there were pictures of both girls throwing, catching and kicking with their daddy. they get more and more coordinated by the day at this age and i had the pictures to prove it.

- the first time in the sprinkler for the year. e loved it and was galloping around with a permanent smile. ad hated it and chose to 'cut the grass' instead. daddy and i were sitting in lawn chairs joyfully looking on.

- my cousins', heidi and shane's, entire visit. thankfully they have a lot of the same pictures, but i know there was 4 pictures of j and i...1 nice one and 3 silly ones. ;) AND a great one of me, j, heidi and shane at the cubs game with the field behind us. it looked like we photoshop'd it.

- lots of swinging pictures. including ad how she leans way way back it's like she's laying down and e pumping herself up so high, yet posing for me each time she reaches her peak.

- coloring with sidewalk chalk with uncle t-bone. they all made some fabulous design all the way down the driveway. uncle t then flipped around ad several times and played hide and seek with e.

- lots of sleeping pictures. e hanging off her bed, completely off her bed sleeping on her bean bag, and sleeping with a pillow (she usually refuses). ad sleeping in our bed, sleeping in our bed sideways, sleeping in our bed upside down and sleeping in our bed completely on my side.

- lots of sisterly love pictures. including a series of ad running down the hall into the living room into e's arms, where e picks her up and they embrace for a few minutes. it's hilarious...and so endearing. e and ad sharing ear buds while listening to daddy's ipod and watching movies together with popcorn on the couch.

- ad's birthday and birthday parties. :( some are on here, a lot were not.

- all of their pictures from a day in the park after church that i counted as their 2 and 3 1/2 pics.

- the valentine sucker photoshoot.

- the first time the girls flew kites. it was just about 2 weeks ago. and they did so great. running with them. standing next to each other looking up at their kites. the sun was setting and it was a very pretty sky. the girls LOVED flying kites!

- our first few bike rides. including one to a park where the girls played and played and ad didn't want to leave and i had to pretend to leave her....twice....before she finally agreed to come with us. and another where they were in their pj's....cuz sometimes we just stay in pj's all day. ;)

"That's not serious; it's just human." ~Jerry Kopke

:(

miss elena has been coming into our room the last few nights and wanting to sleep with us. from the time she was 3 months old up until california - we had never slept together. e was in her room. in her bed. jason rolled over about 3 or 4 am this morning to find elena's upper half on our bed...sound asleep. this was the 3rd night in a row. he scooped the rest of her up and got her situated in the center of our bed and there she slept. this morning when we woke up for the day i asked miss elena why she is coming into sleep with us every night and she replied,

"so that the snakes won't get me."

i am so sad for my little girl right now. there have been several other nights where she has woken up crying, we run in there and she is facing the corner of her bed (think blair witch project) just crying. she's clearly having nightmares and i want nothing more than to make them all go away.

i have been having nightmares as long as i can remember having to sleep. i can still remember some of them i had as an older toddler. and even at 30 years old, they are horrible. it makes me so sad to know that she might suffer from pointless nightmares effecting quality sleep, which could spiral into more harmful repercussions. i believe my nightmares are caused from restless leg syndrome, which often triggers them. i know nightmares in children are much more common, but if anyone has any suggestions to make this better, i'd really appreciate it.

"A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book." ~Irish Proverb

ad got a shiner

yep. miss ad got a shiner sunday! the girls were helping us unload our groceries and adelyn fell into the sliding glass door frame. it started more on her cheek...
but crept up to her eye...i think she makes a black eye look damn good. so of course i had to take a ton of pictures...





i love how even her black eye is tiny and delicate.


"Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain." ~Author Unknown