So ready for summer...

This past weekend was such a teaser before the rain! I JUST LOVE the nice weather. I so desperately want to pack up the winter coats and hats. It gives me the extra couple of minutes I need to get to work on time without all that gear. The girls are happier too, now that they get to get outside and play and Annie can actually experience walking without layers upon layers of clothes. Nice.

Word up, Anne

Couldn't get her to stand still for a pic!

Is it just me, or is Grace growing up REALLY fast??

Ready for church...

Feelin' better

We've been going through this bedtime/puke thing with Annie for most of the month of April - and it has just been exhausting! I decided I wasn't going to wait any longer to get to the doc - and since Grace was running a small temp yesterday too, decided to take a sick day from work and work on my girlies.

Annie has a small ear infection - same ear as the last three or four infections and the doctor is giving her an antibiotic, plus some medicine to treat acid reflux. She says Annie is showing those symptoms and this will help. Annie has a small cut underneath her tongue too - (Poor girl can't get a break!) that is probably being aggravated by the throwing up. Sheesh. I would hate bedtime too if I were her! The ear infection never sparked any fever and she was fine throughout the days - happy even, but just didn't want to lay down. Which I understand - must be some fluid in there.

Grace was adamant that she needed to go to the doctor because *cough, cough* "I'm sick, Mother." (she's on this MOTHER kick right now - it's pretty funny.)

So, we headed out to the doctor's yesterday and here we are:

Yup - that's us. Happy as clams.

I know the doctor AND nurse both thought - "Crazy swine flu mother" when they first walked into our room. But they settled down a little bit when I told them Annie had thrown up at least 15 days out of the past 3 weeks!

Grace's fever had dropped by this time and she wasn't coughing, but still couldn't understand why the doctor wasn't examining her. She cried her eyes out. "I'm si-i-i-i-ck, Mama! (no "mother" this time!) Poor thing, I felt so badly for her. She wanted to be examined, but our pediatrician is sort of a no-nonsense type lady. Very straight to the point and no dilly-dallying. So, thankfully the nurse was very sweet and Grace was consoled with a trip to the sticker basket. Ain't nothin' a sticker can't fix.

So - we are on the mend. I'll be curious and hopeful to see if Annie isn't as picky about going to sleep once the meds take effect and she's out of pain. I hope so - I love my daughter, but I got things I want to do after she falls asleep!

New Raincoats

Clint's dad got the girls matching raincoats this Spring. They are too cute in them! We tried to get a good picture of the both of them so that we could send them to Papa, but the girls were not quite as cooperative as we'd like. This is the best we could do. Fortunately, there will be plenty of other rainy day opportunities, I'm sure!


Here's some cute pics of Annie. I need them to have them burned into my brain so I can remind myself of how cute she is during the daytime, when I'm listening to her scream at night, because yes, we are still up all night.

Pretty Pictures

Although, we'd much prefer to not live on a busy road in the city, there are a few shots of spring that we have found to cheery up our days these days. Clint took a little venture into amateur photography yesterday to capture some of the bright spots in our area and across the street. I'm no plant-lover, but I thought these were pretty!

This one he climbed the tree across the street from us and took the shot from inside the tree - it's my favorite

We are getting excited about planting the garden. Clint planted raspberry bushes, blueberry bushes and strawberry plants this week, and we'll have to think about getting those veggies in the ground soon.

Birthday Party #4

And so we wrapped up Annie's first birthday, with the cousin celebration this weekend. My mother-in-law's house was full of pink and black crepe paper and balloons strewn and then eventually ended up being taped to three little girls' butts as they went from decorating the table to actually being the decorations. Crazy Kiddos!

Here's Annie in her party clothes. I absolutely LOVE this little tiered shirt. She looked so pretty!

I thought I had a cake mix in my pantry, but it turns out all I had was carrot cake, which I didn't think the girls would go for very well, so we had birthday ice cream sandwiches. Which, actually fit very well with the gorgeous weather!

She took a long time to get "in" to the ice cream sandwich.


But not Grace!

Isn't she adorable?? Happy 1st! (again!)

Susan Boyle

Not a member of the family - doesn't even live in the same country.

But. This is one of my favorite songs from Les Mis (one of my favorite musicals) and this video blew me away. I actually teared up! The song is so emotional and gutwrenching and although Susan looks nothing like Fantine, her voice is just beautiful and she inteprets the song well.

Just goes to show, what you see is not always what you get. Sometimes you get more - so much more than you thought.

I Dreamed a Dream

Needin' some winks

For the past three nights now, Annemarie & I have had the same drill:

Rock to sleep

Let her sleep for about 15 - 20 minutes in my arms, to make sure she's out

Put her in her crib

*She sleeps for about an hour*

Wakes up screaming

I go in to get her, pick her up, walk two steps into the living room

She throws up everything in her tummy. All over.

I cannot figure out what is going on with her. Someone suggested acid reflux, which I googled and the symptoms totally fit Annie - fussiness when eating, vomiting, coughing for no reason...
Someone else suggested night terrors, which would make some sense too. If she could sleep through the night, I don't think she would throw up when she wakes up in the morning, so what in the world is it that is waking her up? Teeth? Heartburn? Nightmares? Lactose intolerance?I can't figure it out. And it's only at bedtime - she naps well for the sitter.

I've mentioned her spitting up and throwing up to the doctor last month when she had her wellbaby check up, but the doctor just said that some babies have a very sensitive gag reflux - Annie's nose had been running for a while, so I was attributing her throwing up to drainage and coughing spells coupled with gag sensitivity. Now, I'm not so sure - her nose isn't running, she's not sick and she's not coughing a lot (as in a cold).

I'm scheduling another well baby visit to talk with the doc about this - because the last three episodes aren't merely spitting up, they are full on vomit. Hard core - but she's happy as a sweet little clam throughout the day and even seems happier after she vomits and then falls back to sleep in my arms. Sometimes I can even get her to sleep for 6 or 7 hours in a row after that. Not last night, but the night before last.

She's not losing weight and she's eating well. But, there's no way she's getting the rest she needs. I'm certainly not, how can she be? I guess for her sake, I hope it's teeth because it'll be over soon - she still has only two little pearls on the bottom. But if it can't be teeth, I hope it's the acid reflux, because I hear that Zantac can clear it up pretty speedily. I really hope it's not night terrors - for Annie's sake!

One good thing is, though - Clint and Grace seem to be able to powersleep right through it all...

Easter '09

Tried and true - just when you want your 3 year old to pop out with an impressive Easter answer to the Pastor's daughter - she pops out with "The bunny brought me the Bolt movie!"

*Sigh*

We really did work with her on the Resurrection eggs and she really does know that Easter is about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins (naughties) and then on Easter He rose again and is now the Boss of our life.

I swear she does!

Here are the girlies in their pretty dresses, Sunday morning. Courtesy of Grandma Gilson, Aunt Shaaron, and Wal-mart - it was a collective effort to make these little ones as pretty as they turned out for our Easter service. Did manage to get some nice pics of Grace in before church and before she got grumpy on us later. I honestly think she was having a hard time dealing with everyone saying how cute Annie looked - even though we made a fuss over her too, it's hard to share the old limelight, isn't it?

Grace is back in the House

This past weekend was Grace's first weekend away from home by herself. She came back to us Tuesday evening with wonderful reports of her "fun adventure!" - her words. She had a great time with the cousins playin' and going to Chuck E. Cheese (brave Auntie!) and generally getting a good feel of what it will be like when Annie is big enough to play with. I kept watching Annie to see if she would go looking for Grace or try to say her name or anything while Grace was away, but nope. Annie seemed to be pretty happy to take the spotlight all to herself for a few days. Reminded us what it was like to just have a 1 toddler in the house. Turns out - it's pretty easy compared to having 2! What in the world did we use to stress about???

Even with all the extra work that she comes with though, we sure missed our Gracie girl and were very anxious to see her and have her back in our house. Would've been nice if she'd been reported as missing us though. Even just a leeetle bit, but nope. No such luck! She may be a bit of a social bug. No idea where she would get that from.

Big step

Big step in the Young household happenin' this weekend. Grace is going to Ypsi to visit the cousins with Grandma Young this weekend.

All by herself.

The only other time she's been away for longer than an overnight (and those don't happen very often) is last year when I had Annie. She spent a couple nights with my folks and she did pretty well, I think. Hard to remember - I was a bit hyped on morphine for the first day...

She's very excited. She'll be gone from Saturday afternoon to Tuesday afternoon - that's a LONG time. I don't think she quite realizes that she's going to be wanting us at bedtimes, etc... she's just thinking about visiting her cousins and auntie, whom she dearly loves and thinking about the fact that she's a big girl now. Wow. Where did that time go?? I'm pretty sure she'll be okay. She's a fairly independent kiddo, but she does love her momma to snuggle with at night.

I'm not sure who this is going to be hardest on. Grace or Clint. He's a guy who likes to have the family about. I know I'll miss her, but have plans to maximize the opportunity and do some major Spring Clearing.

Yup - that's clearing, not cleaning, although cleaning is inevitable when you clear. But I'm feeling the urge. The urge to purge. A TON of stuff that we don't need/have room for/don't use. The new frugal way of thinking, living, etc...has got me in a minimalist mindset, not to mention all the incredibly organized moms out there that are providing me with inspiration! They say the state of your house is a reflection of your mindset. Well, let me throw car into that too and I'm living proof of this. I can think SO much better if everything is cleaned and organized and put away. And it will be easier to maintain that if we didn't have so much unnecessary stuff around, which in turn, should lead to having more organized thoughts and a clearer head. Always a plus for this random chica.

So, we'll see. Those are the plans anyway. I guess it depends on whether we get a midnight phone call on Saturday begging us to come and get the Gracie girl!