Adam

I am sitting here just waiting.... waiting and trying not to freak out.  So to take my mind off of it, I will do my daily post.  My husband Adam was undergoing hernia surgery today and it has been over three hours since his surgery started and I haven't heard anything.  I am sure he is fine, it is such a common and routine surgery and he is young and healthy, but I can't help worrying.  I am a born worrier!

Adam and I met in January of 2001, actually as of yesterday, we met exactly 10 years ago.  Right from the start, he has been my best friend and constant companion.  I know lots of people who enjoy having time apart from their spouses, but not me.  I would be perfectly happy to spend 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with mine.  He is just so easy-going and kind, and he makes me laugh; we have the same bizarre sense of humor.  We aren't mushy or sentimental people so for me to even talk this kindly of him is unusual.  You would just have to hear the story of how we became engaged to fully realize how un-romantic we are (remind me to tell that sometime... it is a funny story!)  But it doesn't change the fact that I love him very much and it hurts me to know he is going through pain right now.

Evie and Mylie and I took a little walk earlier to try and make time pass quicker, and that is where my pictures are from today.  The sun was shining a bit, but the ground was still wet from an earlier rainfall.  I have my "mommy googles" (I just heard that phrase today and I think it is great! So true that we look at our children with our mommy googles on and see them as perfect) on and it was difficult to pick which pictures I liked best so there are quite a few.  Sorry about that!

Send lots of healing vibes Adam's way please!

Fashion Show Fun (or not)

Today was a much better day.  Everyone here was feeling quite a bit better and I actually got dressed!  I also got a very generous and adorable big bag of clothes for Evelyn from Miss T.!  There were some brands in there that you may not be familiar with but that I love so I thought we would do a little fashion show!

It was actually a bit of a disaster for many reasons, but here they are anyways.  I decided to try adjusting the settings on my camera and placing Evelyn in front of our sliding glass door in an attempt to not use my flash.  The results were not good, but it was a learning experience.  I tried to set up a backdrop so you wouldn't have to see random crap in the background, but that backfired also because Evelyn thought it was too much fun to duck behind the backdrop whenever I was ready with my camera!  The big girls also decided it was a good idea to make a fort behind it so it looks messed up most of the time.  Oh, and Evelyn's hair is beyond messy.  But anyways...

I am not sure where this dress is from but it is tooooo cute!  She looks like a little flamenco dancer!

This dress is from Tea, and if you haven't tried Tea before, you should!!

A made-in-Canada company! Peekaboo Beans is awesome quality, really thick, stretchy yoga and active clothing for kids.  The cuteness factor is extremely high on these.  I have owned clothes by this company before and they just wash and wear so well.  The maxi skirt is from Peekaboo Beans and the top is from Gap Treehouse.  She really didn't cooperate with this outfit.

And another from Peekaboo Beans, these yoga capris are to-die-for cute!

M'kay, that's it for us today!

More of the Same

I wish I had something interesting and different to say here today, but it has just been more of the same for us.  I was too sick to take care of my kids today so my mom came over to help out, and it became apparent over the course of the day that Mylie is sick again too.

Here's hoping that tomorrow is a better, healthier day!

Mylie got dressed up in ballet gear in a small burst of energy but then proceeded to sleep and lay around still dressed up.  She is missing her Jazz dance class today, but she did sit up for a few minutes and play Dora lego with Evelyn.

Back to Business

Today was an end to the nice holiday from the routine.  Both big girls went back to school today, and it was back to dance and skating too.  Tuesday's are my craziest day of the week and today was made even more chaotic by the fact that I didn't sleep even for a minute last night.  So as I am writing this, I have been up for approximately 37 hours.  Not a big deal for many people I am sure, but for someone who loves to sleep as much as I do ( I love it a lot!  So much so, that to my embarrassment, Laina regularly draws pictures of me flat out on my bed and even has been known to tell people that my two favorite things are Gymboree and my bed.... which is not strictly true... they are in my top five maybe... but my husband and my kids are definitely my two favorite things.  Wow, this has turned into quite the tangent.  I think I could probably dedicate a whole post to my favorite things!)

Anyways, the reason I didn't sleep was because my "Christmas Cold" turned ugly.  My ears got more and more sore as yesterday went on, until nighttime when I tried to go to sleep, the pressure was finally too much and my eardrum ruptured.  I've never had that happen before and it was extremely painful.  It bled from inside my ear for most of the night and I couldn't really lay down and hence did not sleep.  If you aren't squeamish, the last picture I post tonight will be a visual of what I looked like this morning before I cleaned myself up.  I did go to the doctor this morning for a prescription and he said my hearing should return in that ear within the next 6 weeks.  Hopefully!  Although I am not going to lie, I do somewhat enjoy hearing my children on a lower volume setting.

Needless to say, I really wasn't on top of my game today, and I didn't come up with great pictures.  But here they are anyways, it was Laina at skating lessons tonight.

I love this one because she is concentrating so hard on trying to do her jump that she has her tongue stuck out through her lips!



Another of the same.  The rink is a pretty grungy place, in fact it was pretty grungy even back when I used to figure skate there!



This one I get a kick out of because look at the girl behind Laina.  I caught her in mid air, lol!

And finally, if you don't want to see my gross ear, turn back now! 



Mylie's Birth Day

In honor of Mylie's 4th birthday today, I am going to share some old and new pictures with you.  When I was pregnant with Mylie, she was due on January 5th, and I had decided early on that I was going to try for the New Year's baby.  Every year, the local paper prints a picture of the first baby born in the New Year at the hospital in our town, and local businesses cough up cash and prizes.  If I had to go through labor and delivery a second time, I decided that I wanted to make it worthwhile by winning some prizes (oh, and getting a healthy second girlie was a nice prize too).

Unfortunately, Mylie had other plans.  As much as I walked, squatted and drank raspberry leaf tea, she wasn't budging on New Year's.  She waited two more days and on January 3rd, I started feeling mild labor pains around noon.  Adam was in the school portion of his apprenticeship at the time, so I called him and just let him know things were happening but that I thought I would be alright while he finished out his day at school.  We got to the hospital around 3:30pm and Mylie graced us with her presence at 6:30pm.  She weighed 8 pounds 7 ounces and was 21 inches long and was just perfect in every way.

Now, if I had any pride whatsoever, I wouldn't share this picture with you.  But since I don't, here you go.  Some of my visitors took this picture after she was born, but no one in the room bothered to tell me something that must have been glaringly obvious.  This wasn't even minutes after the birth or anything.  It was a least a couple hours later.  Anyone want to guess what I am talking about?

And here is Laina meeting her new sister.

And a closeup of my little cutie.

So here she is 4 years later.  Mylie is my sweet, good-natured little girl, who is generally always happy, but who knows how to hold her own against her big sister.  She is tough, fearless and full of fun.

In the birthday tutu I made her, a Gap Starry Night top, and Bei Capell iStudio hair band.



Here are some others from the day.  We went for a visit with my in-laws and for a little nature walk.

Evelyn in Gap Treehouse:



Love her eyes in this one:

Germs

Have I ever mentioned that I am a germaphobe?  You probably could have guessed since I am phobic about vomit that I wouldn't like germs, but I mean I REALLY don't like germs.  If you were to peek into my belongings, you would be likely to find antibacterial gel in my purse, my car, my nightstand... basically anywhere that you will find me.  And yes, I do know that antibacterial gel actually doesn't kill stomach virus germs, but hey, if it makes me feel a bit safer, then why not right?

Well, today, I ventured into a very frightening place, armed only with my antibacterial gel.  An indoor child's adventure playground, complete with sticky padded walls and dark tunnels lined with who-knows-what.  I try to avoid these places in general but it is Mylie's 4th birthday tomorrow and since we held her birthday party so early, I felt like we needed to do something a bit festive for her, and this was what she wanted to do.

We met up with a couple of their little buddies and their mom and let them loose onto the playground, which brings me to a question.  Why on earth, do parents take their obviously sick children out into public and risk infecting other people with their germs???  I mean, I am not talking about colds... I fully understand that.  This time of year, we would have to hibernate if I never took my kids out when they have runny noses.  And I also understand that there are just times when you have to get something done and you have no choice but to drag your sick kid along.  But what I really don't get, is why someone would take their child who visibly appears to be sick and is shivering from what appears to be fever out to an indoor playplace?  It was all I could do not to rush around and gather up my little troops and leave.  It is almost like knowingly attending a chicken pox party (the idea of which I am not entirely against, lol!) and throwing a sick child in with a bunch of healthy ones to see what kind of results you can get!

Anyways, enough with my germ rant... here are my pictures for the day!  First up is Mylie, who had just mildly injured herself on the trampoline at our house.  Even though she is almost 4, she still does this thing where she sucks on her lower lip while she rifles her hand around on her Bobby (that is her blanky's name... and for the record, he is a boy.)  She was doing that here.  Mylie brings new meaning to the phrase, "Turn that frown, upside down!"



And this is her, laid out on the ground on a makeshift bed made by Laina and covered by Bobby.  It was all very dramatic, Laina the drama queen acting as if a major injury had just occured and she (the heroine) was in charge of making Mylie comfortable until help arrived.  I was obviously being unsympathetic by standing around taking pictures when such an emergency was taking place.

And here are the girls doing lunch with their BFF's at White Spot.

Little Chick and Chickadee

We decided today that we should start a New Year's Day tradition of going on a nice family walk at a nature park near our home.  After bundling up the kids against the minus degree weather, we set out on our walk.  It started out innocently enough with Laina feeding chickadees some bird seed out of her hand, and Mylie spotting ducks walking across ice and diving into frigid waters.  But soon, all three girls had descended into whining, snotty and cranky little beasts begging to be carried so we turned back halfway around the trail.  I am thinking maybe this won't be a New Year's tradition after all.  I'm not that sadistic.  But I did get a few cute pictures before we left.

This is my gloved hand with the chickadee in it.



On another note, I finished the skirt/ top combo with the japanese fabric I showed off here.  This was the first time I have attempted machine applique EVER on the shirt.  It was fun and I will definitely try it again!
Laina was my model today and she definitely has her ideas about how models stand and pose.

I was worried this one was going to turn into a strip tease.

Just as I was typing this Evelyn decided to eat (and choke a bit) on a whole coffee bean.  This doesn't bode well for tonight's sleep!