Hatch Day Wishes

First of all, what is a Hatch Day you ask ... well any "Miss Spider" aficionado knows that her little buggy children all have hatch days instead of birthdays ... because, you know, they "hatched".

Alyssa: Scooter mommy!

Mommy: Yes Alyssa, scooter.

Alyssa: Please mommy, please.

Mommy: Maybe for your birthday sweetie, I will talk to daddy.

Alyssa: Hatch Day Daddy ... please ... Hatch Day scooter .... yeah ... daddy .... yeah ....

Madison: My hatch day too!

Alyssa: Hat too! Hatch Day!

Now repeat this x 100 every day ...

Any guesses what they will be getting for their "Hatch Day"??!!

Fun Filled Day with Mommy & Daddy

Daddy has been hard at work training for his new airplane and he managed to get two days off in a row for the holiday weekend (Saturday and Sunday) so he decided he would not study on Saturday and instead spend the day with his girls ... all three of us!!

Mommy got up early and started the day by working for a few hours and by the time the girls had finished their breakfast and daddy has his morning coffee and shower, we were heading out the door.

We started out by stopping by one of our many local Targets to pick up some items from mommy's long, long list of needs. While there, we stopped and enjoyed coffee drinks (mommy and daddy of course) and smoothies for the girls at Starbucks:

After finishing up at Target, we headed to a local park for some serious play time. The girls had a lot of fun, except for the "time out" that Miss Madison needed to take while we were there:

Their favorite thing at this park was the slide and the resulting "silly hair" they got each time they went down it:

Our next stop was at the grocery store to pick up grilling supplies for the evening and then we headed home so the girls could nap and mommy could work again. After the girls nap, we once again headed out to another park and played some more until we were all hot and tired and agreed that hot dogs, french fries and orange dreamsicle ice cream with M&M's from Cold Stone sound great.

After our hard earned dinner, we headed back home and continued our day of playing outside on the desk at our water table girls taking their "baby", Pablos, Uniqua and Tyrone for a swim. Finally we headed back inside to watch the movie "Garfield Gets Real" and then it was off to bed for the girls.

Mommy and daddy finished off the evening with an "adult" meal of fillet on the grill ... yummy!!

Love & Hugs -

Amy

Speech Therapy Update

Well, mommy met with the MRVSEC Cooperative therapy group which services our school district today. It turns out the both girls qualify for free in-home services through their third birthdays (so over the summer). In addition, Alyssa qualifies for assistance beyond age three, so she will be enrolled in an program at the elementary school this fall. Madison may also end up qualifying if they decided to re-test her at the age three level again as that is made up of different standards. So, that was wonderful news!!

For now, at least until the upcoming loss of my job this fall, we are going to try to keep the girls going in both the district's in-home program (paid for by our tax dollars) as well as continuing in the private clinic that we have been attending for the last few months. Hopefully by have two sessions weekly and the therapists talking with each other as far as therapy plans, we will be able to make good and fast progress in the talking department.

We really feel good about getting the girls the assistance they need to "catch up" in the speech area!!

Class Picture

Mommy received an e-mail today from another ECFE mommy which included a picture of the girls with their classmates on their last day of school last week. Considering it is a group of 2-3 year olds, it didn't turn out half bad! Also, mommy was asked for permission to use a picture of Miss Madison in the school brochure for the Fall 2008 school year for the ECFE Program ... how fun!! Both girls made the brochure last year for 2007, so I guess we are on a roll!!

We have our review with the school district on Friday for setting up the at home speech therapy that both girls qualified for, so we will post another update with the results tomorrow.

Love & Hugs -

Amy

Make Shift Princesses

What is a Princess (or in our case Princesses) to do when she finds herself making a public appearance without her tiara and princess wand ... simple ... just have grandpa and mommy make you some out of a plastic construction/building playset ... problem solved!!

Love & Hugs -

Amy

Just for fun ... Our many Faces

UPDATES:

Potty Training: The girls are officially potty trained day time and night time!! They haven't worn diapers to bed for two weeks and no accidents!! You would think we would be experiencing a windfall in money from not buying diapers ... but I guess the rise in gasoline prices is making it hard for us see.

Speech Therapy: The girls are both progressing nicely and are adding more and more words with each day and along with those words, even more personality ... which I guess is a good thing right?!!

School: The girls last day of "school" was last Tuesday. They received their completion certificates ... last again ... darn last name starting with a "W" ... so they are learning the art of impatiently waiting for their turn. We do have three sessions in June for "summer school" but that is it then, we are on our own until fall. The mommies in the group are trying to organize weekly playdates at different area parks for everyone, so hopefully it will work out that we will be able to attend a few!!

Farmor: We are a few days less than ONE month away from her visit and we are very much looking forward to her arrival!! I only hope the sun decides to grace us with its presence while she is here ...

Love & Hugs -

Amy

Happy Mother's Day!!

Happy Mother's Day to all the mommies out there reading our Blog!! This is officially my third Mother's Day and so far, the most enjoyable one. This is the first time my darling little girls could actually say "Happy Birthday Daddy" ... oops they meant ... "Happy Mama's Day Mama" ... I guess that is price you pay when Daddy's birthday was just five days ago ...

After starting mommy's day with the rousing birthday wishes for daddy, the girls proudly presented mommy with a Sesame Street gift bag that contained an IPOD docking station/alarm clock for mommy's bedside!! What thoughtful little girls mommy has.

After breakfast for the girls and a long shower for mommy, it was off to brunch with Granny M, Grandma & Grandpa B and cousin Alexia. After brunch, we all headed back to Grandma and Grandpa's house where we were joined by Uncle Clayton, Uncle Kory, Aunt Carrie and cousins Joshua and Kaylynn for the afternoon.

We headed home in the late afternoon and played with the girls on the deck until bedtime.

It was a nice day and mommy got to top off her day by watching the season finale of Survivor without much complaining from daddy ...

It is good to be the mommy ...

Love & Hugs -

Amy

Snacktime with the Barenaked Ladies

No sillies, my girls are not the Barenaked Ladies ... however, that IS the name of mommy's all time favorite band!!!

BNL (Barenaked Ladies) just released a new CD this week called "Snacktime" and it is collection of 24 original children's songs but with the awesome (yes, I am actually using the word awesome, like totally) sounds of the voices of Steven Page and Ed Robertson ... lovely to mommy's ears.

So, anyone looking for a new kind of children's CD with some familiar grown up voices, I highly recommend checking this one out!!!

Mommy has already loaded it on the girls' MP3 players!!

Our Date with Horton & the "BIG" Screen

The girls had their first visit to a movie theater to watch a movie on the "BIG" screen. Mommy and daddy decided it was time to give this adventure a try. We went to see "Horton Hears a Who", we figured it has been out quite a while and hopefully there wouldn't be many people at the theater for us to potentially disturb. We were right, we were the only people at the show. We had the whole big theater to our little selves.

It has been about three years since mommy had been to a movie and honestly it is so much louder than I remember it being. We were a little concerned when we put the girls in their movie seats as they were not big enough to hold them open. Luckily, mommy noticed movie chair booster seats for little kiddos and they did the trick, even had a cup holder on them!!

The girls did beautifully, although got a little antsy towards the end. They loved the big picture and enjoyed the show. However, I think their most favorite part was the big tub of popcorn we had. They also enjoyed a banana and some string cheese courtesy of mommy's big mommy bag.

Here they are proudly showing which movie they just saw before heading off to get a few groceries and head home for bed.

We had a great time and even daddy, who was a little bit hesitant to give this a go, enjoyed the show and the time with the girls.

Mommy, Daddy, Madison and Alyssa give Horton a big thumbs up ... especially if it comes with popcorn!!

Love & Hugs -

Amy

Happy Birthday Daddy!!

We helped daddy celebrate his birthday with Scandinavian Strawberry Torte (daddy's favorite) for breakfast, after we woke him up singing or rather loudly stating "Happy Birthday Daddy"!!!

We love you lots daddy!!

How Far Would You Go For Princess Maddie?

Our little Maddie girl has become a princess, as per her ... "I pin cess Maddie." She has decided to wear her "princess" sandals, a tutu and a tiara as part of her regular attire the past three days. So far, Princess Maddie has graced the speech therapists with her presence, dined as a Princess at dinner last evening, toured Ikea as royalty proudly introducing herself to anyone who would engage her as "Hi, I pin cess Maddie" and finally today ventured into Target, the preferred shopping center for every little Princess.

Anyway, last night at dinner, mommy took Princess Maddie and Baby Alyssa to the restroom to go potty. Baby Alyssa did a great job. Princess Maddie did a great job. Mommy washed the Princess' hands (there was a sink right in the family stall with the potty chair) and then positioned her out of the way and proceeded to wash Baby Alyssa's hands. Suddenly the Princess became very upset, screaming, crying, pointing at the potty. Mommy casually walked over and peered into the potty to find the Princess' pink bangle bracelet resting at the bottom of the water in the potty ... lovely ...

Mommy said that it was just gone now and that is why we stay away from the potty unless we are going potty. Not a good enough answer to the Princess and hysterics ensued, fearing my Princess might actually fling herself onto the bathroom floor and have a seizure, mommy took a deep breath, nearly started crying herself and reached into the potty to retrieve the bracelet ... close to passing out from the experience, mommy's hand and the bracelet proceeded to be scrubbed with soap and disinfectant for the next 10 minutes in water so hot that mommy's hands are likely to be permanently red ...

Princess Maddie gave a "big hug", a smile and a "thank you mama" after being handed back her bracelet ...

So, there you have it, mommy will stick her hand in a public potty to retrieve the royal jewelry of Princess Maddie ... (I am blocking this incident hence forth from my memory).

Maybe this will make up partly for "The Pablo Incident" ...


Love & Hugs-
Amy

The "Pablo" Incident

Well, what seemed like a good scapegoat or maybe I should say "scape cat", may not have been such a good idea after all ...

Let me start by saying, the girls love music and mommy and daddy have been seaching high and low for a music player that was not a baby toy for them to have. So when mommy, daddy and the girls were at Barnes & Noble Bookstore last week we were thrilled to purchase two books which each came with a plastic "CD player" and four plastic CD's with 20 musical songs on them. These music books cost $25 each. The girls had a choice of Pablo (above), Dora or Elmo. Both wanted Pablo and mommy didn't want to spend $50 for two identical books and music sets. After a discussion with the sales clerk in the children's section, it was determined that all the players played all the music, so I talked Madison into the Elmo book with the understanding that the Pablo music would play in it. Okay, she was reluctantly agreeable. The books were bought and we headed home with one Pablo (The Backyardigans) book and one Elmo book.

The girls loved them. Daddy and mommy were a bit disappointed in them when we found out that the music discs only had musical renditions minus vocals of all the songs. The Elmo book required us to actually "sing" the songs while the Pablo book didn't even have lyrics, you just played the music while you read ... lame we thought for $50. We were going to just "suck it up" and keep them, until mommy tried a Pablo disc in the Elmo player and still got Elmo music. Mommy tired a Elmo disc in the Pablo player and still got Pablo music ... basically they were NOT interchangeable.

Needless to say, we decided that for $50 they just simply were a big disappointment and we were going to return them. (We couldn't try them out at the store as they were all sealed). Now, our big problem wasn't the actual act of returning them, it was explaining to two 2 1/2 year olds why they couldn't have the books they loved.

We put the girls to bed, packed up the books and hide them in the car hoping that they would just simply forget about them by morning. Yeah right, morning arrived and the first words from Alyssa's mouth were "Pablo book". The search began for Pablo and Elmo; the whining ensued and finally the crying. Mommy explained that they were gone (which they were) ... ummm louder crying .... ummm okay they were broken (kind of, they were not interchangeable discs and players) ... even louder crying ...

Now desperate to calm the situation, mommy abandoned the little white lies and told a full fledged lie ...

"The cat (Quincy) ate them."

Okay, not my best, but there it was, the words had already left my mouth ... our poor little eight month old kitten ate two huge hard covered books, two plastic CD players and eight plastic CD discs ...

Not only did they buy into this idea (he had already chewed some holes in other prized toys), but still 1 1/2 weeks later, Alyssa still talks about the incident:

Alyssa: Pablo book ... kitty ate

Mommy: Yes honey, but Quincy said he was sorry.

Alyssa: Elmo too

Mommy: Yes, Elmo too

Alyssa: Yeah

Mommy: Quincy is sorry and said he wouldn't do it again

Alyssa: Okay mommy

This coversation takes place daily at least two or three times a day. Yeah, mommy is likely going to regret this indiscretion and poor Quincy will be scarred for life, but we did get the girls little MP3 players which mommy loaded with lots of their favorite songs (they have a built in speaker so no headset needed), so now mommy doesn't have to sing ... something both girls should be thrilled about ...

As for Quincy, he has made it easier for mommy to get the girls to pick up their toys ... after all he just might eat them if they stay on the floor ...

I know, I know ... bad mommy ...

Love & Hugs -

Amy