A little Photoshop fun

I LOVE this photo I took of Alex. It just looks really serene for some reason. I have been "practicing" with my photoshop lately, and FINALLY figured out how to remove all but certain parts of the color pictures. Am I smart or what. Anyone with Adobe Photoshop that wants to know how, give me a buzz.

 

The mystery of the missing corndog

We have been uber busy this week. Like, get up before 6:00 am, walk out the door by 7:00 am, and not walk back into our house until 8:00 - 10:00 pm. Makes for 3 grumpy girls, 1 irritable Mommy, and one very messy house. Anyways. One night I was out with Maddy and Trav had taken Alex & Peyton home. He was in charge of their dinner, I was in charge of Maddy's & mine. Madalynn & I went to Mazatlan. Yummy. He took the little girls to Dairy Queen. Ick. Anyways... He got Alex a corndog & french fries and they took it home. And he didn't, I repeat, DID NOT get the baby anything. He figured he could feed her something a bit more healthy at home. I agree. I also think that he could have feed Alex something like that too. I digress.. So, Peyton was a little bit peeved at Daddy for not getting her a corndog apparently because when he was up stairs changing, Alex yells at him "DADDY! I CAN'T FIND MY CORNDOG!" This bemuses Trav. He can't figure out for the life of him what on earth Alex would have done with her corndog. So, he calms her down and says he is going to look in the van for it. (anyone else see a problem with that? or is it just me?) On the way out the door he spots little Miss Peyton, HIDING behind our couch, gnawing on the corndog. Mystery solved. We have a bonified corndog thief in out midst. I guess we'll forgive her. Since she's so cute. But beware. She's not above steeling other peoples food! :-)

I love this baby...

My sweet baby Peyton, I love you so much.

 

Going to the Lodge...

As mentioned in two or so prior posts, we went to The Great Wolf Lodge for some family fun at the resort/waterpark. Would I recomend for people to go? Absolutly. It was a great time. A little expensive maybe, but worth it. If you go mid-week, during an off time of year you can get rates for much less. Apparently we went during a prime rated week, because we spent about $100 more PER NIGHT then it would have been for us if we would have gone next week. Oh well. So keep that in mind... Oh, and the food prices. Forget it. SO expensive. We were going to go to the buffet they have for dinner, but one look at the prices told us to walk away. The adult cost was $19.95 each, and the kids $9.95. We were not going to spend $60.00 on one meal. Or at least for a buffet. (I am one to splurge on a fantastic meal, NOT a buffet though)Seeing as Travis is the only one who would have truly appriciated the Buffet for what it is, we took off and went to Subway. $5.00 footlongs baby.

To close, here are some pictures from the Great Wolf Lodge!

My daughter Alex...words escape me.

Rewind. Almost a year ago. We went to Disneyland, and had a FANTASTIC time. Took LOTS of pictures. One in particular still makes me laugh... Here is my daughter, groping Winnie the Pooh. Ahhh, the memories.


Fast forward. This last week. Great Wolf Lodge. Again had a FANTASTIC time. Took a few pictures. Not as many as I would have liked, but seeing as its a water park, I really didn't want to get my camera wet so I had it in the room most of the time. I did manage to snap this picture though...

Yes, she is groping the Great Wolf Lodge mascot. This picture makes me laugh even harder then the Winnie the Pooh one. Look at the ears. And the feet. Like he is trying to tell her with his body language to not TOUCH him there! I know she doesn't do that on purpose. Its just where she is comfortable grabbing. Scary eh? Sorry in advance to all the characters we will see in the future... :-)

Vacation...Take 1!

We are back from the first leg of our vacation. We all had a wonderful time at the beach. We stayed at the Surftides in Lincoln City. It was alright. Its been a challenge for us finding a beach hotel we REALLY love. Until that day comes we will just keep changing hotels. One nice thing was that it was right ON the beach. Unfortunatly not a beach we really wanted to spend time on so we didn't actually make it ON TO the beach during the coastal part of our vacation. Oops. :-) We did hit up the pool everyday, the outlet mall once, the Aquarium in Newport, Mo's, the park at Devils lake, & of course the taffy shop. Oh and on the way, we decided to drive up to Tillamook, to take the girls to the Cheese Factory, for a little tour and some of our favorite Tillamook Ice Cream! And so we stopped by good ol Pacific City for a beautiful shot of the mondo rock. We are off on the 2nd leg of our vaca tomorrow morning. To Great Wolf Lodge! We will be back down to a fam of 4 for this part of the trip though. Figured Peyton would be too big of a pain in the tush to deal with so we are pawning her off on Trav's folks. They don't mind, we don't mind.. Win win. I'll leave you now with a couple shots of our vacation thus far. If you are my friend on Facebook, the rest are there.. Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All is warm again. Well, almost.

My heater has been fixed! Wah hoo! Too bad it cost me $252. I swear it was the teeniest of tiny boxes that he showed me of which held the part that was broken. And he spent all of about 20 minutes fixing it. Wish I made that kind of moolah. Nope, I just pay it. :-) Thats ok though. Because I have heat!

Baby its cold inside!

Brrrrr. My house so cold right now. Our furnace took a major dump on Thursday, and we have been with out heat since. I think its about 50 degrees in here. Not kidding. We ARE out of the elements however, but it doesn't seem to help much. I put Peyton to bed last night in socks, a turtleneck, a sleeper & a sweatshirt and when she woke up this morning her poor little lips were blue from the cold. I let my big girls share a bed for the body heat, and Trav & I each took our microwaved rice bags to bed for warmth until we woke up. I am currently waiting at home ALONE for the nice furnace fixer man to get here. I usually love having a couple hours to myself, but not today. I would rather be with my kids at the G-parents house where there is heat and a fireplace. Get here soon man! My toes are numb!

On the plus side, we are on VACATION! Woo HOO! We are going to the beach tomorrow until Wed, coming home Wed night, getting up Thurs, dropping Peyton off at daycare, and heading up to the Great Wolf Lodge for a fun couple of days at an indoor water park. Trav's parents are watching Peyton for us so we don't have to worry about taking the babe there. She wouldn't enjoy it like the big girls and it would be so much more work for Trav & I, so we decided to leave her with them. I am so very excited to take my girls away for a little vacation. They are so good most of the time and deserve a little fun too. And they get to skip school. Maddy is way excited about that. :-) Anyways... I need to get to work washing some clothes & stuff. See ya!

Are you flippin kidding me?!

Kid. Puke. Again. VAN. Lots. And lots. And lots.

We were on our way up to Costco, Red Robins, & Frys in Wilsonville this afternoon. We had picked our girls up from a night with the G-parents and were ready to have a fun family night out. Our girls looked a bit peaked, but nothing out of the norm after spending the night away from home with no bedtime enforced. Didn't think much of it. Then the van was silent. Weird. Alex had fallen asleep. Strange, but it happens. Peyton had fallen asleep. Happens quite often too. Maddy, she turned green. Literally. Not good. Then all of a sudden. We hear it. There are really no words to describe the sound. You moms know it. So I don't need to waste time trying to explain it. Puke. I hand her a plastic sack to finish in. She just holds it and keeps throwing up all over her clothes. And the seats. Did I mention the floor? Really really gross. We pull into the parking lot at Costco, and I start to work with baby wipes. Yes, my friends, baby wipes are the multi-purpose tool of the Mommy hood trade. Meanwhile Alex is back there with us, gagging. I was so afraid she was going to throw up too. But she didn't. Phew! I get Maddy all cleaned up as best I could with what I had available, changed her clothes. (Thank you Dad for washing my girls' clothes last night! You are a lifesaver!)And into Costco we went. (yes, I took her into Costco like 7 minutes after she got sick everywhere. I was NOT going to waste that trip.) And she preceded to ballet through out the store. Kids are so darn resilient. We skipped out on Red Robins though. Figured that wasn't such a good idea. Went to Frys. Bought us a Wii! Should be fun. :-)

And for a non sickness related story. *you are welcome* On the way home, Alex REALLY had to use the potty. We were on 18 between Mac & Sheridan so there was no place to stop. I had Alex sing the Alphabet to distract her. So she did. I then asked her to sing it backwards. Thinking that would give her something to actually think about. Nope. She just did it. With out even pausing. Crazy. Even I have a hard time doing that. I was pretty much dumbstruck. She might be a handful most of the time, but she is a smart one!

I am off now. Need to finish cleaning up my house for a baby shower tomorrow. My little sisters. She's having a baby boy, due in May. I made 2 ginormous cakes today. Huge. Yummy. Cakes. One chocolate, one white chocolate. 7 layers each. So good. But oh so bad. Have a night night!

The food goes where?

Peyton had a great time at dinner tonight. As you can see we had spaghetti, and she loved loved loved it!

You know you take too many pictures of you daughter when she almost always closes her eyes when she sees the camera. Oops.

 

Noodle slurping is not something you have to teach apparently.

 

My happy messy messy girl.

 

Um, Eeew.

Its official, I have a toddler now. Never mind the actual toddling, or babbling. Or even the attitude. It was became so when she threw up, what looked like, the entire contents of her body at the dinner table tonight. Iiick-y. Poor thing. She just didn't know what to think! Or do for that matter. She just sat there with this stunned look on her face, like, WHAT THE HECK JUST HAPPENED?! Anyways. Thats all I have for ya! Yak at ya later. (Pun totally intended..)

The one where the grown ups to go counseling

Today was the day of our 1st counseling appointment. It went alright. We talked with very nice lady, for about 50 minutes, and after we were done she says "Well, I just don't think I will be able to help you." HUH? Say what?! She goes on to tell us that she is a "Family" counselor, not a "child" one. And after talking with Trav & I about the situation, our family life, our marriage, our kids. She determined that its not our parenting skills that need help. Its Alex. Which was kind of a bittersweet pill to take. Part of me just wanted her to say, jeeze parents, if you were to just do this (insert solution here) with her, she will be the perfect child. Duh. Because I can handle changing things about me, and the way I react to Alex. But the other part of me was kind of proud. You know, the whole, I'm not actually doing anything wrong, part. So, step 2. Find a Child behavioral specialist. One who can work with us in determining why Alex is so impulsive. And loud. And stubborn. Then for that person to help us, to help her. Which is the whole reason we are doing this in the 1st place. Anyways... Just thought I would give you all an update!

All is good. For now anyways.

Our meeting with the Principal & teacher went really well today. What a huge relief! We went through everything Alex does at school that doesn't, lets say, show off her better side. She doesn't sit at story time, she will lay down, pull up her shirt, show off her undies, kick the wall, or if she is sitting, she wont sit criss cross applesauce. AND when the teacher gets up from her seat to do something, guess who scrambles up to spin in the chair? Yup. My daughter. She ALWAYS wants to be line leader. And usually yells at who ever gets there first. Then she will yell at the teacher. Then she gets sent to the office. She is an over zealous cleaner. Cleaning things that aren't hers to clean. She has NO friends. (this made me start to cry, I am still devastated that she doesn't have a little buddy) The little girls in her class are all very clicky. And they have decided to leave Alex out and they tattle on her endlessly. Which, pisses her off. I, can see both sides. 1. No one likes to be friends with someone who yells all the time. BUT, 2. No ones likes to be told on, and be left out. I would probably want to yell at them too. But being a grown up & all its frowned upon.

They did give me some great attributes about her though. She is incredibly smart. Very loving. A girl with a broad imagination, who has the ability to stay on task. They are very impressed with her connection skills. Not many 4 year olds can put together a 100 piece puzzle with out any help. In a short amount of time too. She's got exceptional reading skills for a 4 year old. She just needs to learn how to control her emotions.

Now, here's a little secret. We're taking her to counseling. I don't know HOW it will help. But I am positive it will. Its very humbling as a parent to say: "Hey, I need some help here. Things are not going right. What can you suggest?" But its come to a point where Trav & I just aren't cutting it. And I'm ok with that. What ever I can do to make my daughter a success. I'm there. So, like I said, All is good.

I feel sick

I am so nervous. Tomorrow Trav & I have a meeting with Alex's principal & teacher to discuss her behavior. I feel in my gut they are going to tell me that she can no longer go to school there. And THAT just breaks my heart. Now, I don't KNOW that is going to happen, but us Moms, we're pretty darned intuitive. And I feel sick. My Alex, she is a very sweet girl. Full of life & pizazz! But she just doesn't know how to corral it. She is impulsive, and stubborn, and kind of hard to work with. But she is so very smart. I almost feel like yelling at the teacher for not understanding HOW to deal with her! I can, Travis can, Diane out daycare provider can. I want to yell, DON'T GIVE UP ON HER! She's only 4! Its our job, to teach her, to guide her, to SHOW her! To be role models for her. But most of all to love her for who she is. I know, boy do I know, she is a difficult child right now, but if we don't take control of the situation at this moment, she will become a difficult PERSON, whom no one likes. And that is just not ok. So, for right now, I feel sick. And I am praying for my sweet girl. And for me, so that I can be the Mom she needs me to be. I am her advocate. Her biggest fan. Lord give me peace. And knowledge. And hope. Because Hope, it helps.

Where does she get this stuff?

I think that Alex is going to be a stand up comedian. No really! She is so funny! Actually, its more that she gets confused and she just says what she thinks. Like...

When I was picking her up from Daycare the other day, she was laying in the chair, and she pointed to her eye and said "Momma, do I got purple eye? Cuz my eye weally huwts." All I could do was chuckle and ask if she meant PINK eye. And NO she didn't have pink eye. Thank goodness for that.

We were driving into town this morning and out of the blue she asks... "Momma? Does this road have a black eye on it?" Huh? OH BLACK ICE!! Me, "No, the road is clear today hon." Alex, "Oh, what IS black eye?" So, I got to explain that to her.

Maddy... That girl says some pretty funny things too. Like asking me for a cell phone. Hilarious. "But momma, it only costs like $7 dollars." Right.

Honestly though, my girls are a hoot. And I am thankful everyday for the time I have with them.