If you don't have anything nice to say...

then don't say it at all! Isn't that what the majority has been taught? Apparently the lady at the store the other day was in the minority. Here's the story...

I had been searching far and wide for the perfect (get me through Easter Sunday) white shoes for Gaga. I found a pair that I liked but they did not have her size at the store I was at. So while at home I searched for the nearest store that had her size and headed there later that afternoon. I parked the car and went to the back to let the kids out. Junior is always first out and as I lowered him to the ground I told him to stay close to me (as I always do when we are in a parking lot) while I got Gaga out. He listened very well and stayed a little too close to me because as I took a step back with Gaga in my arms, I tripped over Junior and we all fell to the ground. I landed on my tailbone (that hurt!) and Junior was underneath my back face down. We all get up, Junior now crying (loudly) with scratches on his face from the asphalt and me hobbling to the entrance door. (I was determined to get those shoes.) We make it to the baby shoe section and Junior is not letting up. Do you blame him? His mother fell on him and his face is scratched and bleeding now. I looked everywhere and did not see the shoe size we had came for. Of course, could this trip have gotten any worse? But yes, it could! An older lady walks by as I'm searching for the shoes that online said would be here and says in a rather rude way, "I think he needs to go home!" I'm standing there with my mouth open wide thinking...alright lady, thanks for the rude, unsolicited advice. You have no idea what we have just gone through and I think he has every right to be wailing right now! If I didn't feel so bad for Junior and want to get him feeling better soon, I might have followed that lady around the store awhile. :) But we didn't and we left the store crying, hobbling and empty handed.

Keeping busy

Between work for Daddy and I and school and baseball classes for Junior, we have been keeping busy. It makes me wonder what we will do when school and baseball classes are over for the summer. Now that the weather is getting warmer, it's also nice to have the outside world to explore again. We have been to the park a couple of times or just in the front of our house practicing on our new big boy bike we got handed down from cousin A! We are definitely ready for summer!

Water table fun while Mommy and Daddy washed cars

Cousin A handed this down to us...thanks!

Cousin A came for a visit a few weeks ago...the boys headed out to blow bubbles

Great Aunt D helped

Great Aunt K supervised

15 Months Old

Yes, she is already 15 months old! I still can not believe how big she is now! First some stats...

15 Month old stats:
31 inches tall
18 lbs. 15 oz.

Second, some facts about our 15 month old...

• She's officially WALKING, even though she still prefers to crawl 60% of the time
• For the most part she plays well with her big brother (there are the occasional quarrels)
• And because of those quarrels she has started to "fight" back, which has led to a few reprimands and "no-no's" from us and a few tantrums from her
• She can not go to sleep without her pacifier and pink pig
• When she says "hi" and "bye", you would think she grew up in the deep south
• She understands quite a bit and can follow a few commands from us
• She knows what a dog says and what a cow says and will mimic when asked
  
• She tries to put socks and shoes on her feet
• She pretend feeds herself from the play kitchen (even though she has no desire to feed herself for real with a spoon/fork)
• She's really good at brushing her teeth and goes straight for the bathroom stool to stand on when either we are brushing our teeth or she has gotten out of the bathtub
• Immediately after dinner she says and signs "bath", knowing our routine
• She loves her bath
• She loves when Daddy comes home and crawls (because it's faster) as quick as she can to greet him
• She loves hanging upside down and will put her legs up in the air to ask for more
• She loves to talk and tell you stories while pointing to EVERYTHING
• She can make us laugh with any funny noise, facial expression or the sound she makes when she gets excited
• She has a great personality and loves interacting with anyone she meets

Words she can say now:

• hi
• bye
• mama
• dada
• Junior's real name
• uh-oh
  
• banana
  
• ball
• bath
  
• shoe
• teeth
• truck
• night-night
  

Lastly, some pictures of our 15 month old:

Play date with a friend

She is fascinated by everyone

Her new favorite activity

By far one of my favorites (excuse her hair, this is what happens after it's been up in pigtails)
"I know I'm cute!"

Loves pushing Junior around on his tricycle (same day as the above pic...wild hair)

Sleeping beauty

Day Out With Thomas!!!

The long awaited day had finally arrived! Junior had anticipated this day almost as much as we had. He was dressed before all of us, complete with his Thomas the Train shirt and tickets in hand, that he had tucked safely in the drawer of his nightstand. He was ready to go...so we went!

After dropping Gaga off at Nana and Great One's (thanks to them for watching her!) we headed out. When we passed by Thomas while looking for a parking spot, we all were excited, but especially Junior! We rode Thomas, played with the train tables, visited animals in the petting zoo, jumped on a bounce house, watched a short Thomas movie, and took pictures in front of Thomas. It was a busy day!

I would be most certain that the highlights of our day were playing with the train tables and of course, riding Thomas. While riding on Thomas, Junior belted out his best "choo, choo" about every 30 seconds. It was wonderful to see such excitement radiating from this little guy! Click below to see all our pictures.

Day Out With Thomas

Junior's Open House

Junior had his open house at school that included a musical presentation by the 3 year old classes. I don't recall seeing his mouth open to sing any of the songs, but he gave a great effort in performing all the motions to each song. It was so cute! After the show we went to his classroom and were able to see many artworks he had created over the last few months. He was proud to show them off!

His class processing in, waving streamers (his "favorite friend" is right in front of him)

Singing with suns...

with sticks...

and with shovels.

Making his bluebird fly

Proud sister looking on

Star of the show

Star of the show with his sister

Junior displaying some of his artwork...the rest were on the walls.

Great News!!!

We had another routine check up with Gaga's pediatric opthamologist yesterday and after his examination I finally heard what we had been waiting for. That Gaga's eyesight is getting BETTER! THANK YOU GOD and ST. LUCY!!! He told me that he can now say with certainty that we are on the progressive track with her eyesight instead of the regressive. It took him until now to determine that because he needed to see over time if her sight was improving or not. He said that her astigmatism in her right eye (the one with the cyst) has improved since her last check ups. That was a huge relief for me! I held my tears of joy until we got to the car and then left Daddy a message to call us back!

Although everything is looking much better we will still follow up with the doctor every 4-6 months until she is about 7 years old. The doctor says that eyesight is like wet concrete, it can change and be molded many times until it is set at the age of 7. We will continue to check the astigmatism and make sure she is not starting to favor her left eye since it is stronger than the right. He said that right now she is still using both eyes equally but since she can see more clearly out of her left, over time it could become stronger and cause her right one to become lazy. Which is why he recommended that we try and patch her left (good) eye to get her to predominately use her right one. He would like us to do it for 3 hours a week and if she doesn't like it and continues to try and take the patch off, then not to worry about it (he doesn't think she will leave it on at her age). So I'm not! I'm just looking at it as every minute we have it on will make her right eye that much stronger! I'm also thinking...we will see your 3 hours a week and raise you 3 more! I know she can do it if she is as competitive as me!

They sent us home with a few patches to start with and as soon as she woke up from her afternoon nap (I knew she would do better if she was happy), we stuck that patch on! Sure she tried to take it off, wouldn't you? But after a few minutes of distracting with toys, pulling her hands away and playing horsey, she completely forgot she had it on. At that point I thought, 3 hours? We will get all 3 done in one day. She lasted an hour, not 3! What a trooper! That was much longer than I had originally thought when I first put it on. I was so proud of her! I can easily see us doing that three times a week!

St. Lucy, continue to pray for us!

Of course I took pictures...

Giving credit where credit is due

Forgot to mention in a previous post with all the Valentine's Day activities, Daddy did well this year complete with breakfast in bed and flowers for both his girls! Thanks Daddy, we love you!

My flowers

Gaga's flowers

"O my Jesus..."

Among a few other things, we took up saying a family rosary together every night this Lent. Junior has really started listening to all the words of the prayers which has brought up many questions as to what some of the prayers are talking about. My favorite so far was last night when we said,

"O my Jesus forgive us our sins and save us from the fires of hell..." to which Junior questioned, "FIRES OF HELL? What?" To which we explained that there are fires down in hell and we don't want to go to hell, we want to go to heaven to be with God.

Then Junior replied, "Maybe the fireman can go down there and fix it."

What we've been up to...

Wow! That's about all I can say. It has been a whirlwind around here. Mostly because a couple of weeks ago we went through 5 weeks of sickness from one person to the next.

The first week was Gaga, complete with fever, congestion and a green snotty nose. A few days of at home remedies, I made a call to the pediatricians office to make sure I was giving the right dosage of tylenol (had a lapse of memory and thought I was overdosing) for her fevers. Come to find out that doctor did not like me keeping her home with continued high fevers so we went in the next day to get the once over. Oops! Guess, this nurse mommy didn't know best! Just as I had suspected though, Gaga had a nasty cold and 8 teeth coming through (both contributing to the high fevers). But what I didn't suspect was the green drainage had settled and started a small ear infection in her left ear. Good thing we went in to get checked out! Poor baby! Many prescriptions later, we had a little girl on the mend.

One day passed and everyone was healthy! Then week two started and Junior had a horrible sounding cough and a fever. Kept him home from school and towards the end of the week he was back to normal. In the midst of all that, Gaga decided she was missing all the attention she received last week when she was sick and started throwing up Wednesday night. That lasted about 6 hours and then she slowly started eating the next day.

Same as before we had one or two days of everyone healthy and then Gaga got sick again with a horrible cough and fever. Just to make sure her ear infection was gone and to not get in trouble with the pediatrician again, I made her an appointment. Ears were fine, just another cold and now just 4 teeth coming in. (The other 4 had worked their way through that past couple of weeks.) Finally by the end of the week, we were done...or at least I thought.

A week went by and then I started feeling nauseous, feverish and had some stomach issues that put me out of commission for Super Bowl Sunday :( and barely able to hold my own the next day. A couple more days of feeling weak, it was time to get things back in order around here. The house was a disaster!

A few bright sides to all of this...
1. I never had to miss work (which isn't hard to do only working a couple days a week)
2. Daddy never got sick! How did he manage that?
3. When anyone was sick, I wasn't working and therefore left Daddy not having to stay up with kids hours on end in the middle of the night and then have to work the next day.

So now on to all that we've been doing while we haven't been sick...

Falling asleep on the couch with no pants on and our favorite toy

Valentine's Day party with our playgroup

Received FREE last minute tickets to our town's minor league ice hockey team. The kids enjoyed all the noise and music. Daddy and I would have enjoyed it more if we had not been sitting in front of two preteen girls SCREAMING in high pitched voices!

The whole family

Gaga loved to dance to the music

The day I started feeling well enough to start getting the house back in order...almost everything was completely picked up and orderly until I leave Junior and Gaga alone to themselves for a few minutes and come back to find this. When asked what was going on, Junior replied, "We making a mess!!!" I almost broke down in tears! I was headed to work that night and left most of it for Daddy to clean up...I was done!

Valentine's Day party at Junior's school...standing in line to toss bean bags through heart-shaped holes.

Junior's turn

Junior and two of his classmates eating their V-Day snack

Our blizzard of 2010
Gaga was not a fan...Junior couldn't get enough of it!

My attempt at a snowman :( Although little, Junior that he was amazing! He stood outside talking to him while I went in to warm up!

Daddy's attempt at a snowman...notice the cowboy hat! Now that's a Texas snowman!

I guess he will learn someday

While I'm in the living room changing Gaga's diaper, Junior tells me he needs to go #2 as he hurries to the bathroom. A minute or two later, he comes out of the bathroom and asks me to wipe his bottom...

Me: Turn around please. (Junior turns around.) Why is your backside all wet?
Junior: I fell in the potty hole.
Me: (laughing) You fell in the potty hole?
Junior: Yes, somebody not put the seat down...maybe it was YOU!
Me: (still laughing) Sorry buddy, but Mommy does not go to the bathroom with the seat up. That was YOU!

I'm still laughing about it! The joys of a boy!