Blog Your Heart

For today ... something different.

Today, I'm responding to a prompt by Stephanie Howell to "blog your heart."  The point is to be honest and authentic.  And, for me, the point is to actually write a post about me, and not about the kids.

So, here goes nothing...

1.  I love fall.  I love the chill in the air in the morning.  It's still getting up into the 80s most days.  I wish that October and November were about 3 times longer (well, and December, really, too).  We're already starting to book up our October weekends.

2.  I have lost the battle on the whole "princess" thing.  I really wanted to keep that out of our house, because I don't like the whole sense of entitlement that comes with it.  The still love Mickey and Minnie, but they also love to dress up like a princess.  I'm trying to come to terms with it and make sure it doesn't get out of hand.

3.  That being said, I don't trust my parenting judgement.  Big things, small things.  Should I have held my ground on the princess thing?  Are they eating enough vegetables?  Am I too hard on them?  What size clothes will they be wearing next season?  Do other kids whine this much?

4.  I wish I lived closer to my family.  I miss them dearly, and have some guilt that it's my choice that we live so far away.

5.  I kind of want to do something fun for Thanksgiving, but I'm too cheap to make any plans.

6.  How can I have been here for 12 years and still not have any friends?  No one to go to a movie with?  At first, I thought it was because everyone had kids.  But even my adult relationships that have come as a result of having kids are really just casual conversations in passing.

Momento

Monday 20 August 2012
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6:23 PM   J:  Last night when it was raining, I heard my boo boo getting better.

6:24 PM   E:  No, you get in the back.  I drive.


Saturday 18 August 2012
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8:34 AM I think today was the first time I heard Emma use the word "restaurant" instead of "house."

9:36 AM   Greg:  We're going to turn off the bridge and onto the highway.
                  E:  no, that's the low way.

9:37 AM   E:  I used to snore like a baby when I was a baby.

11:22 AM   E:  I saw a car with no doors (a jeep).  That's called a soldier.

3:25 PM   R:  what are you two doing up there?
                 J:  playing 'Who's Emma and Who's Julie.'

3:49 PM   E:  (a truck passing us on the highway). Mom, that truck is moving us backwards.


Thursday 16 August 2012
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10:43 AM Julie and Rebecca were showing me sign language in the car this morning.  (a, r, m)

6:46 PM   R:  (going past a church) Maybe it's a birthday house.


Wednesday 15 August 2012
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6:16 PM   R:  My monkey's name is Monkey Grace.  She's very shy.


Tuesday 14 August 2012
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7:15 PM   R:  Everybody put on your thinking cap on your foot!  (overheard while they were in the tub)


Sunday 12 August 2012
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9:46 AM   E:  No boys can come in my X-ray.  (most likely a reference to the Berenstein Bears 'No Girls Allowed' book.)

10:19 AM   J:  Mom, why are these called pink cotton balls?  (ping pong balls)

12:47 PM   E:  Sometimes dragons knock down dinner houses.
                  Me:  is a dragon going to knock down this dinner house?
                  E: Soon, but not today.

2:07 PM   R:  Daddy, why are you wearing a bracelet with a clock on it?  (a watch). Oh.  Miss Jamie (teacher) has one of those.


Saturday 11 August 2012
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4:47 PM   R:  Talk about, talk about, talk about (her favorite part of the Funkytown song.  She sings along with that part.)

5:04 PM   Emma and Rebecca screech at the top of their lungs and say their baby is crying.

5:04 PM   R:  (To monkey:)  you're getting a little loud.  (a direct quote from mom and dad)


Thursday 9 August 2012
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8:07 AM   E:  Mom I want it louder.  (music in the car)


Monday 6 August 2012
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7:38 PM   E:  Mommy, we got here (at a red light) second first.  (They are all, for some reason, obsessed with whether or not we get to a red light first, as in, we are the first car.  They ask about it all the time.)

7:39 PM   Text from Greg while I was at the gym:  I told the girls we are having chicken nuggets and corn on the cob for dinner. Julie said "that smells delicious!"


Saturday 4 August 2012
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6:01 PM   J:  Some of my boys start with J, too.  (the boys in her class)

Vacation: Food

Mmmmm...  Food....

This is a real sign.  It's at a gas station/convenience store, straight out of the middle of nowhere.  It's run down, and not somewhere that I would consider eating.  But I love the sign.  Maybe this needs to go in my kitchen?  It's the only shot I could get while hanging out of the car window during a brief stop to skip "Franklin in the Dark" when it scared Julie to tears on the way to the beach.

IHOP breakfast one day.

My parents don't come to the south without getting some BBQ.  My dad found this tiny little place from their ad on the local community access channel.  Best sweet potato fries I've ever had.

There was lots of ice cream to be had.  That's an important measure of a good vacation.  There was also lots of "Can I have a taste?" of mom, dad, grandma, and papa's ice cream.

One day, we packed up a picnic lunch, and went out the pier right outside of our hotel.  We walked all the way out to the "tower," and watched the fishermen, the parasails, the airplanes with banners, the boats.

Dinner out one night with everybody.  Mmmm,  steak and beer.

Drinking milk out of a mug was quite the novelty.

Do you know anyone who loves salad this much?

Spaghetti night.  There's a reason she doesn't have a shirt on.

No, mom.

I can't believe this is starting already, but according to Julie, I am always wrong.

Let me give you a few examples.

Me:  "Yup, that's where we got our shirts yesterday."
Julie:  "No, mom.  T-shirts."

Julie:  "There are no horses out."
Me:  "Maybe they are eating lunch."
Julie:   "No, mom.  Breakfast.  You eat breakfast before you eat lunch."
Me:  "But it's afternoon, and you just ate lunch."
Julie:  no response.  I consider this a small victory.

Julie:  "What color is this?"
Me:  "Blue."
Julie:  "No, mom.  Light blue."

I get corrected constantly when we're in the bathroom and I say, "Pull up your pants."

"No, mom.  Underpants and shorts."

I need to write down more examples of the stuff she tells me, but it's seriously to the point where, to almost everything, I hear her respond, "No, mom."

Vacation: Rides

Last year when we went to the beach, the girls went on their first merry-go-round ride, and fell in love. There's a big shopping/food/entertainment complex near where we stay, with a big merry-go-round, so I figured we'd be spending a lot of our time there.

On our first "need a break from the beach" day, we went to the outlets for a little while, and then went to the giant ferris wheel in Myrtle Beach.

Julie in the Sky Wheel

Afterwards, we were trying to decide what to do, and rather than go all the way back, we went to the other big shopping/food/entertainment complex called Broadway at the Beach.  I'd kind of written it off after last year - expensive, and not all that different than the closer one.

But it's all in the details, of course ... There are more rides at Broadway, and the girls are a year older now.  All the stuff that they weren't old enough for last year was just perfect for this year.  We had so much fun the first time that we went back again on Friday.  These pictures are a mix of both days.  We got wristbands for unlimited rides, and made sure we got our money's worth.  :)

There are two sections of rides:  one is a section of newer rides, and the other is a section where they moved some rides from an old amusement park that used to be on the beach.  The old section had some  rides that I remember as a kid...  the motorcycles and dune buggies.  Good times.

Remember these?

Hot air balloon Ferris Wheel 

Tea cups 

I think these cars were their absolute favorites, the ones that whip around the corners.  They would get on and stay on until we made them come off.   These remind me of a ride I used to go on with my cousins at a carnival behind my grandmother's house.

 There were 2 merry go rounds - one in the old section and one in the new.

This is the new one.

The older one

 Train!

 Boats.  I remember these.  :)  We totally ran them ragged on the rides.  This picture is really blurry, but by this point, Emma was so exhausted.  She's just trying to hold her head up here. 

 This one was called Willie the Whale.

Old school motorcycles.  It was really dark over there, so not many non-blurry photos.

NICU Reunion

Interrupting my vacation posts here to update with some current events, too.

Last week was the NICU reunion.  We got there on the late side because we had a meeting at the girls' school first.  Luckily, the crowd had thinned by then (though the chicken fingers had thinned by then, too...).

This year's theme was Princesses and Pirates, so the girls got a wand and a crown when we got there, and then we went over for pictures.  I'm wishing I had lugged the big camera.  I like the convenience of the camera phone, but I'm kind of bummed that they seem so blurry.

What you get when you tell Emma to smile for a picture.

They had a table set up for fingernail painting.  The girls have only ever had their toes painted, so we got to the table and Emma started taking off her shoe.  Emma chose hot pink with silver sparkles.

Julie got purple with gold sparkles.  Daddy got to try to blow all their nails dry before they got them all over something.  (Emma had to have some nail polish removed from her face.)

Becca had purple with silver sparkles.  Becca is a nail biter, and she just had tiny little stubs of nails.

Emma and Julie wanted to have their faces painted.  The kids doing the face painting certainly weren't artists...

Cupcakes for dinner.

It's a tough princess life.

And our official documentation...

Sand Castles

The ladies put Daddy and Papa to work.  Of course, I'm not sure who had more fun...

Rebecca spent a whole lot of time in the sand earlier in the week, when she was terrified of the ocean.  She got pretty good at getting a sand castle out of the bucket.

Emma burying Daddy's feet in the sand.  I don't think it will be to much longer until they start wanting to entirely bury Daddy in the sand.  But this year, just feet.