Go ahead and eat first, Daddy

Our usual Sunday morning routine is this- Claire wakes up and I bring her into my bed hoping to nurse her back to sleep so Mike and I can sleep in for just a little bit longer.  It's all for naught because Grace comes creeping into our room and climbs into our bed a few minutes later.

When Mike and I were newlyweds and bought our queen size bed, we thought it was huge and had plenty of room.  Add two little girls to the mix and there's not much room at all.  Not that I'm complaining.  Having all four of us just lounging in bed, greeting each other with good morning kisses, and laughing at Claire as she attempts to crawl all over us is one of my most favorite things in the world.

Then, since sleeping in is no longer an option, Mike will go downstairs and make a pancake breakfast for us.  After breakfast, there is a mad dash to get everyone ready and out the door so we can make it in time for  the 9:00 Mass.  Most of the time, we're successful.  But I definitely feel like my mother when I have to put my makeup on in the car.  She used to do the same thing when I was little and I always used to wonder why.  Now I know.  With two kids to get ready, there's just never enough time!

After church, Mike went to school to get some studying done and I took the girls to the movies.  The only kid movie out right now is "Wreck-It Ralph".  Not exactly Grace's girly kind of movie, but I was trying to bribe her with something since I wouldn't be able to take her to a birthday party in Virginia Beach as planned.  I wasn't feeling 100% yet and since Mike couldn't come with us, I didn't think I'd be able to handle the two girls at a skating party.

We ended up loving the movie!  It was really cute!  Claire did awesome after the first half hour when she fell asleep for the rest of the movie.  The first thirty minutes were a little nerve wracking though since she didn't want to honor the 'silence is golden' rule.

The rest of the day we spent just hanging out and waiting for Mike to come home.  When it looked like it would be a really late night for him, I bathed the girls and got them ready for bed.  Then Mike called and said he was on the way home so I told Grace I would postpone her bedtime for a little bit until Daddy could come home and read her a bedtime story.

When Mike came home, Grace immediately asked him if he would read her a bedtime story.  After he said he would, she very sweetly told him, "Go ahead and eat first, Daddy."

It took us a couple of minutes to realize that she wasn't really that concerned whether Mike ate dinner or not; she just wanted to postpone bedtime so she could finish watching a show on TV.  It's kinda scary to think that she already knows how to work her parents.  Secretly though, I think Mike is a little proud that she was smart enough to think like that.  I'm just concerned that if she can think like this at 4 years old, what more when she's fourteen?

While big sister is enjoying her bedtime story, this one would rather make a mess of the books.

Twenty-five, six

 Grace's Statue of Liberty pose is for her Valentine's Day card.  I saw this idea on Pinterest where you take a picture with this kind of pose and make it look like you're personally handing a lollipop to your Valentine.  I showed it to Grace and she thought it was hilarious.   She giggled and assured me that her friends would LOVE it.  She had fun posing and was fairly patient with me as I tried to get the shot right.  The candy bribe I offered her at the end when her interest started to wane didn't hurt, either.

Thanks to my dear husband, I was able to squeeze in some 'me' time this morning.  Despite his full study schedule, he urged me to leave the girls with him so I could go out and do a little window shopping at this store I've been dying to check out.  Maybe it was the look of crazy (or haggardness?) starting to creep into my face from the lack of alone time lately, but I'm grateful for that hour of time to do whatever I please.

After lunch, I put Claire down for her nap and let Grace skip hers so I could take her to the park.  I have been promising to take her, but the weather has not been cooperative lately.  Even though it was sunny today, it was still a bit chilly.  But I'm glad we went together- just the two of us.  Although she adores her baby sister, I think a part of her misses having me all to herself every once in a while.  We finished our time out together with a quick trip to Target and on the way back home she said, "See, Mama?  Isn't it so much easier with just one kid?"

Later, we played cash register where we go shopping around the playroom and then check out with the cashier.  I told Grace I wanted to purchase Claire.  So she scanned her, thought about it for a few seconds, and then told me she cost, "Twenty-five, six."

Considering she can only consistently count up to the twenties so far, that's pretty expensive and I told her so.  She said, "Well, she's my baby sister!  I love her!"

See, Claire?  How much does your big sister love you?  Twenty-five, six dollars worth!  And to her sweet, newly four year old self, that's priceless!

TGIF

TGIF- thank goodness it's Friday!  I don't know what it was about this week, but it just seemed extra long to me.  I'm glad the weekend is here.  Mike will be busy studying for exams next week, but there's just something about Saturdays and Sundays that make me happy no matter what we've got on the agenda.

We had a little playdate at 'King Burger' (Burger King), as Grace likes to call it, today with a classmate from school.   Grace had a blast playing and I enjoyed an hour of adult conversation with a sweet lady.  Then we hit up another Dollar Store and bought our materials for one of our Valentine's Day projects.  Afterwards it was straight home so everyone, including me, could take naps.  Mike beat us to it when we got home and found him passed out on the couch.  Poor thing has been under the weather since earlier this week.   And now I'm not feeling so hot, but I'm trying to ignore it because we all know mamas don't get to take sick days.

When we woke up from naps, I made dinner, which consisted of heating up leftover chicken noodle soup and making a batch of *pigs in a blanket.  Please don't judge my menu.  My family's lucky I actually made something.  I was this close to going out and ordering from a drive-thru somewhere.   That or making my family eat cereal for dinner.

The rest of the night was laid back.   Grace and I worked on Valentine's gifts for her teachers.  Claire tried to steal our materials.  Mike studied in his office.  Exciting times around here!  But my family is under the same roof, we are safe and warm despite the cold outside, and our bellies are full- all blessings that I don't like to take for granted.

My taking of imperfect pictures continues!  But there's something about this that I love- Mike and Claire laughing and Grace being ever so patient about her baby sister pulling her hair.  

Trying to keep our materials out of Claire's curious hands!

*Grace does not like the name 'pigs in a blanket' for the croissant wrapped mini sausages so we tried coming up with alternatives like 'turkeys in a towel', 'fish in a bowl', 'dogs in the house', and 'cats in a cradle'.  Cats in a cradle won out.

Valentine's Day Prep

Valentine's Day is a week away and this year I really have to up my game.

Not for Mike.  Most years he's not even around on Valentine's Day.  And this year, Valentine's Day falls smack dab in the middle of his exams so it will be just like he's not here.

And it's not for Grace, either.  Usually, I make heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast, we go out to a bakery and pick out a cupcake as our special treat, and that's pretty much the extent of our Valentine's Day celebration.  I know, I know- kinda lame, but when you've got Christmas followed by her birthday the next month, and then Valentine's Day a couple of weeks later- by that time I'm pooped and all out of creative ideas.

What's different this year is that Grace goes to school.  That means exchanging Valentines with her fellow classmates and getting presents for her teachers.  I don't want to embarrass the poor girl on her first Valentine's Day exchange by sending her to school with something uninspired.

So I've been scouring Pinterest for creative and fun (yet easy and cheap!) Valentine ideas.  There are so many ideas swirling around in my head that I still don't have a clue what to do.  We wandered the aisles at the Dollar Store, Target, and Walmart.  Every brainstorming idea I tossed out at Grace, she loved.  And now I'm in trouble because she thinks that every idea is a project in the making.

Thankfully, my girl is pretty easy to please so I think whatever we come up with will be a hit.  At least with her.  And really, that's all that matters to me.

Enjoying a lovely picnic in the playroom.

How terrible is it that when Claire fell into her toy basket, our first reaction wasn't to help her out, it was to run and  get the camera to snap a picture?

Perfect Day, Imperfect Pictures

I love being a stay at home mom.  I truly feel blessed to be able to stay home with my babies.  But that's not to say that every single day is perfect.  There are days when I can't wait for Mike to get home so I can say, "Tag, you're it!" and get myself some 'me' time.  Even if it's just a trip to Food Lion to get a gallon of milk.

Today, though, was absolutely perfect.  No, I didn't get through all of the laundry.  The floors didn't get vacuumed.  My office that I've been meaning to organize is still in shambles.

But my sweet, yet high maintenance baby girl who almost never, ever naps during the day took two glorious one hour naps.  And she went to bed tonight without a single sound of protest.

My girls and I laughed and laughed today!  Claire is getting to be at that age where she is starting to interact with her big sister and Grace is loving it!  They played choo-choo train around the house while I was instructed to sing the choo-choo train song ("All aboard the choo-choo train, all aboard the choo-choo train!  All aboard, all aboard!  Choo-choo!").  I happily obliged, of course, and my heart was bursting with love and happiness to see my babies loving and playing with each other.

This is the reason why even though I am woefully behind on the blog- (I am still in the process of updates, I promise!)- I am not going to delay any longer.  I don't want to miss out on these little moments any more.  They seem insignificant because sometimes life gets a bit routine, but these little moments are the ones I'm going to miss one day.  And I'm afraid if I don't document them now while they're happening, they're going to fade from my memory.  I barely remember what I did yesterday!

These pictures I took today may not be the best quality (so blurry!), but they still do their job of reminding me what a perfect day I had with my babies.

Playing choo-choo train. 

Baby girl is getting so big!  

Claire's 1st Football Game

I have never been a huge football fan.  Many might think that un American, but I didn't grow up watching it so I've never understood all the rules.  I don't know when I'm supposed to cheer, and for the longest time, I was amazed at how quickly they were able to paint that yellow line on the field between plays (I felt like an idiot when Mike patiently explained that you only see that line when you're watching on TV because it's not really there in real life).

It looks like my baby feels the same way about the game.  We took Claire to her first football game on Saturday- Old Dominion University, my alma mater, versus William and Mary, Mike's current school.  She was completely indifferent to the whole thing.  She even napped through a quarter and didn't stir when the mascot went crowd surfing right next to her. 

When we first started dating, Mike would make fun of me for attending ODU because we didn't have a football team and his alma mater, Virginia Tech, was at the pinnacle of their football glory.  Fast forward nine years and look who's laughing now.  Not only does ODU have a football team, they are pretty darn good, AND they beat William and Mary! 

Happy Halloween

Claire was a pink parrot for her first Halloween.  It was Grace's special request since Grace wanted to be a pirate and every pirate needs a parrot.  And if you're a pirate princess like Grace, not any parrot will do.  It MUST be a pink parrot.

So I scoured the internet for a pink parrot costume that I could buy.  No luck.  Next I searched Etsy.  Too expensive.  Finally I went through Pinterest for ideas on how to make one.  I compiled a few ideas and gathered my materials. 

That was about a month ago.  I started on her costume the day before Halloween.  Nothing like some good old procrastination.

I finished the costume by powering through a crying baby during the day and staying up until two in the morning.  Considering Claire only wore the costume for a total of about fifteen minutes and could not have cared less what I put her in, I felt a little crazy for going through all the trouble. 

But Grace was ecstatic that she had her pink parrot sidekick.  And that parrot was pretty darn cute, so in the end, I guess it was worth it after all.

Getting ready to start on the parrot costume with my two 'helpers'.

This little 'helper' didn't enjoy that I was preoccupied with her costume and couldn't hold her all day long.

My Pirate Princess only trick-or-treated for half an hour before calling it quits. 

Happy Halloween!

"Arrrgh, matey!"