Then and Now

Just for fun. When some of my "favorites" of Adele's old outfits come out of storage, I love going back and looking at pictures of Adele in them...

Then there are other times when Anna acts so much like her big sister that I just can't help but open up iPhoto and start going through pictures again...

Right now, it seems that those times have collided and I just can't stop looking at pictures of my two cuties! Hope you enjoy as much as I do!

The Baby Who Cried Poop

(Alternately titled: Mommy Needs a New Nose for Christmas)

We have had a few whirlwind weeks. Anna has switched babysitters, she is teething, and she has an ear infection. All of this means one thing: Fussy, Not-very-fond-of sleeping-through-the-night Baby!

Daddy was out of town last night, and by some miracle Anna actually slept. all. night. long. We woke up, went for a 4 mile run, headed down to my school for the annual pancake breakfast, garage sale, Veterans' Day program and book fair. I was planning on taking the girls swimming, but the weather was so great, we went to Holliday park instead. The girls had an absolute blast!

We got home in time for lunch and Anna's nap, which she took without a fuss.

Memaw arrived just before Anna woke up. Since Daddy wasn't planning on being home for dinner, we decided to head to Kohl's to pick up a new pair of "footie" pajamas and then to Ruby Tuesday's for dinner. Just before we left, Anna pooped. I remember that I was glad that I wouldn't have to worry about poop on our little shopping trip.

At Kohl's, Anna pointed to her diaper and said, "poop". I didn't think anything of it because that's what she always says. Looking back, however, she also started to take her clothes off in the middle of the store. That was a bit odd, but not at all unlike her sister.

We got to Ruby Tuesday shortly after 5:30. I was a bit shocked that they had a 20 minute wait, but figured that it was early enough that the girls could wait to eat. I was wrong. Anna's behavior was so atrocious (screaming, wiggling out of our arms/her seat/wherever we tried to put her, reaching for anything and everything) that Memaw and I decided that we had better leave. We asked to get our food to go, since we had already been to the salad bar, and waited some more. By the time our food came out, Anna had finally started snuggling me, and had calmed down a bit, but her sister had taken over for her and was bouncing off the walls.

The drive home seemed incredibly long. Adele decided to practice her growl. Anna thought that was hilarious and growled with her, in addition, there was singing and squealing and possibly even some shrieking. When we got inside, I put the girls at the table and tried to feed them. Anna ate a little bit of her food but wasn't very interested. I let her down and decide to get her into her pajamas. It was then that I felt her squishy, bloated diaper. When I changed her, it was clear that she had been poopy for quite some time. Quite. Some. Time. Oops.

No wonder Anna had been a royal pain in the butt-she had a royal mess on her butt! For our entire trip. Mommy of the year right here, folks.

The best part (and by best, I mean worst...) is that all morning on our little adventure, I was constantly checking to see if Anna had pooped, and when I changed her dirty diaper before we went shopping, I made a mental note to remember that it was a small poop in case she wasn't quite finished. I can't remember even thinking about her diaper after that moment, though. I didn't even bring the diaper bag in to Kohl's OR Ruby Tuesday's even though it was out in the car-I just plain didn't think I would need it.

Hello?

Dear Aunt Dee Dee,

Anna wants to apologize for hanging up on you. Twice.








Love,
Me

P.S. Happy 11-11-11!

Counting

Adele counted to 100 tonight. Sure, she has been counting the "cheating" way for weeks now (one, two, skip a few, 99, 100), but tonight she actually counted all the way to 100! I love that amazing little girl!

Daddy Time!

Daddy and the girls had a good time hanging out without me during Fall Break while I was in Chicago with Aunt Dee Dee and Aunt Jenny...here's a glimpse of how they spent their time...

Fall!

While Daddy and The Dead Hearts jammed in our living room, the girls and I had fun jumping in the leaves. Anna wasn't so thrilled about getting buried, but she warmed up to the idea of jumping in them when she saw what a blast Adele was having!

Curls...Take Two!

No, I didn't use curling iron on Anna's hair...I tried Adele's again...this time we had better luck, although they still didn't last very long. We curled her hair when I put Anna down for her nap (after lunch) and they were pretty much gone by dinnertime...despite an application of hairspray that would make the 80's proud!

Curls!

I curled Adele's hair today just for fun...it won't hold much curl, and even tamed down in the ten minutes between curling her hair and taking the pictures, but she was proud of her curls...




Also, at Anna's naptime today, Adele sang her the sweetest lullaby just out of the blue. It was really sweet and almost brought tears to my eyes. I have such wonderful daughters!

Stats

I had a few moments tonight, so I figured it was time for an update on how the girls are doing. Time is going by so quickly that I forget to take time to write down the cute things that they are doing!

Anna's vocabulary is skyrocketing right now. Her cutest new word has to be "bubbles" because she annunciates it perfectly. Her favorite game is "chase" and she has even started to do the chasing. She will run away into another room and shout our names, expecting us to run after her. Sometimes she runs away, other times she runs up and "attacks" us...17 months is a FUN age! She has discovered all of the scrapbooks Memaw has made and absolutely loves looking at all of the pictures and pointing out different people. She is convinced that DeeDee is Mommy and that baby pictures of Adele are "Nana" but other than that, she does well with recognizing family members (All of this looking at scrapbooks has me on a roll again with my blog-trying to get MY memories of the girls recorded in some fashion!). In addition to recognizing us, she is getting to know her princesses by name, as well as many Sesame Street characters (including Zoe and Abby which still seem "new" to me-so it's always shocking when she knows them!) She has developed a strong love for books and of course, her Elmo books are her favorites at bedtime each night! She has a new babysitter this week, and has adjusted very well, especially considering that she had a "Daddy" weekend, followed by two stay-home-with-Memaw days before beginning with her new babysitter.

Adele continues to be her usual spunky self. This week her class learned different nursery rhymes. She is so amazing! After one day spent on each rhyme, she has learned Old King Cole, Hey Diddle Diddle, Mary Had a Little Lamb (I think that is the only one she knew before) and one more that I can't think of right now. She absolutely wants curly hair right now and will try to will it to curl just by staring at it. I even tried to use a curling iron on it tonight, but nothing would make her hair hold a curl. Oh well...someday maybe she'll appreciate her hair for what it is! Adele's favorite activity right now is anything having to do with drawing or painting. She will sit at the kitchen table for hours and draw picture after picture. Often she'll draw the same picture over and over again, always writing labels (usually names) along with her drawings. It is so cute to watch her at work-tongue sticking out of her mouth in full concentration! Adele is very fond of "twirly" dresses at the moment, and has had some interesting outfits because of this...obsession. Bapa and I spent a Sunday afternoon at Goodwill a few weeks ago picking out some 99 cent twirly dresses for Miss Princess. We picked up a bike as well, and Adele has been practicing riding it! She is practicing counting backwards from 10 and counting to 100 by 10's...the child amazes me!

We had a ton of snuggle/play/giggling time tonight, and I am just so in love with my girls! Anna decided to strip naked shortly after dinner, and Adele isn't one to wear a lot of clothes anyway, so as soon as she saw that Anna was naked, she stripped down as well. I decided to go ahead and throw my naked girls in the bath. They played forEVER in the tub, but it was still plenty early, so we had some good playtime before heading up to bed. I have been so busy since returning to work that it was nice to just sit back and enjoy my girls for the evening!

Sisters!

Over fall break, I had a wonderful time "playing" in Chicago with my sisters (they even forced me into trying sushi... surprisingly, they didn't have to force me to like it, though!). I already see the special "sisters" bond between my girls and am enjoying watching it grow stronger every day!