The Sweet Girl

This is a photo from September but I love it. TSG is such a vital part of our family and yet I don't feel like I have given her much mention since the start of the blog. She seems to always have a smile on her face and she is definitely behind Nucky everywhere she goes. I am so grateful that she has been an easy and content baby (she is 15 months old but I guess she will always be my baby until I have another). This photo really seems to capture her general good-naturedness. I like to think that I was like her as a baby because I remember my mom telling me that I was easy, etc... but maybe I need to get more info before I go taking all the credit.

Other notables about TSG: saying a few words like dada, mama, uh-oh; understands what we're saying and can follow simple instructions when she chooses ("give me a squeeze" -- head goes down on your shoulders, "time to go night night" -- starts waving to everyone that she'll be exiting the room, etc). When Lover leaves for work in the mornings, he does a game Nucky calls "Boo Door." We are usually sitting at the kitchen table and he goes into the garage and plays peekaboo, poking his head in and out of the door. TSG finds great joy in this activity as grins even after he's left. When he is done, she starts waving and, if not in her booster seat, she runs to the front window to wave to him. Both girls have always gotten very excited when Daddy comes home and hate to see him leave in the mornings. We videoed Nucky when she was little as she would spot Daddy coming down the street and how her reaction was so giddy. Need to do the same for TSG.

Indian and Pilgrim Wanna-bes

Here is Prancing Deer, I mean Nucky, at her class Thanksgiving feast. If you will look closely on the plates, you'll notice they were eating popcorn, Chex mix, deli sliced turkey and Jello jigglers.... ah, just like the pilgrims.

We (well, mainly me) made pilgrim hats to try to have a little lesson about the pilgrims. The sad fact is that I had to go online to find out some information on pilgrims.... to share with my 2 year old. Maybe I shouldn't consider homeschooling?

This is the picture I was referencing in the previous post! This was on a visit to Clanton, AL in September while Daddy was in Boston for the GT/BC game.

Just needed to document some daily activities. Nucky really enjoys helping TSG out. That's what she's doing in this picture. Everytime I call, correct or give a command to TSG, Nucky feels the need to help it get accomplished. Maybe I should be grateful for the help, but it seems to end in crying.

She adores playing with water and will do so for 45 minutes to an hour at a time if I just leave her alone. She really likes to pour water in sippy cups and then put the lids on and serve them to me. She has a wonderful imagination when it comes to active play. I really love how she is often feeding her "friends." If you ask her what their names are, the answer is first "Blah" and then if there are more, they have names like "Mah" and "Tah" and "Bah." I always suggest other names like Hannah or Elizabeth... she prefers the monosyllabic utterances.

We all love jumping and playing on the bed. Oh, I need to post one of this same activity with our friend Little Street Fighter (his alias in case you were wondering of his parent's sanity) and his sister Little Ninja when we visited.... time elapses... i can't figure out how to do it without it coming up as the first pic... help, JD.

Ew gross!

I had a similar experience to a friend of ours who blogged so eloquently about it... but mine will not be so eloquent. Nucky had just visited the potty to do her daily business (hip, hip, hooray, it is no problem for us to go #2 in the potty) ... yes, #2 and #1 too. I'm right there with her ready to wipe (joy of motherhood). Just as we have completed, TSG shows up. She is always in the middle of the action, especially if someone is having a timeout, a meltdown, a crying fit, etc... just likes drama. Anyway, unbeknownst to me, she has a finial to a lamp in her hand (don't how or why it was within her reach). I didn't know she had said finial until I hear a very distinct "kerplunk" and then I spot the finial in the toilet. Wouldn't you know it. Thus, the title "Ew, gross!" I had to think about the importance of the finial... decided it was useless very quickly. Got the ole slotted spoon, shooed the kiddos away, did some fishing, and was able to flush.

A Hike Up Stone Mtn

Some of our favorite friends who live in Brazil came to visit. We had big plans to go bike riding around Berry College in Rome, GA but plans changed b/c the weather was supposed to be cold and rainy. Wanting some kind of excitement and outdoor adventure, we decided to go just a few miles down the road to Stone Mountain Park and hike the mountain with all 3 kids in tow. What seemed like a modest and not particulary gutsy decision turned out to be a memorable trip. I haven't exercised in at least 15 months and agreed to carry TSG on my back while Lover literally hauled Nucky up on his back (w/o a pack). Our friends had their 1-year-old in a backpack to share the burden. What started out as a pretty day (65 degrees?) quickly changed as we hiked... once at the top, temp went down to about 30 something, wind was blowing fiercely and it started raining! Thank goodness for the shelter up top. The funny part is that Nucky was in one of her disagreeable (about walking especially) moods, so in order to keep her going and not crying (like I wanted to do), we kept talking about this as a big Dora adventure. We'd just seen a Dora about going to the Mountain (stone mtn, right?), then a palace (shelter at the top of stone mtn?), then the tower (antenna on top of stone mtn?) and then the wall (small rock wall at the bottom of the hike)... she thrived on the imaginary part and hung in there with us.

I had several emotions and thoughts running thru my head... will my kids freeze to death, can my quads really keep making me move so that we can actually get home, will i ever try to hike 825 feet (laugh, Colorado friends) with 22 lb baby on my back...

Here we go... Halloween first

As I enter the blogging world, I have a few confessions...
a) I've criticized bloggers (and facebookers) for awhile now for having too much time on their hands
b) I've seen blogs and Facebook as a place to show the world who I want to be as opposed to who I really am
c) I will probably start plagarizing blog ideas now that I have one
Will you forgive me?

So, that said, I am going to start some blogging. No committment on how often it will be, and if it is anything like some of my other endeavors (go ahead and laugh, husband of mine), it may be another one of those things that starts out with good intentions and dies a slow death. May it be said from the beginning ... and this is the beginning... that I am doing this for the sake of memories for my children. I have found, especially in reading my friends' blogs, that this is such a cool way to keep up with the minutia of life that will pass us by, and we will be saying with the rest of the over 60 world, "enjoy them because they grow up so fast." I find that it is in the daily stuff that we make our memories and not in the trips to Disney World (well, maybe I should actually take the kids there before I desanctify - is this a word? - said trip) or the special occasions and holidays. I love the idea of printing the blog one day and sharing with the kiddos -- so much more fun than a baby book. And, I despise the pressure of scrapbooking though I think they are so cute.

Also, since my parents are unable to open any photo I send them, they can check out the ole 'days blog' to see if their grandchildren have done anything cute, noteworthy, embarrassing or special. Or their daughter too. So, family, this is also a tribute to you!

One more thing before you can start seeing the girlies... the title of this blog is a tribute to Bo and Hope, Roman (or is it John now?) and Marlena, Patch/Steve and Kayla, as well as Abe and Lexi and Tony Demera.... if you haven't clued in yet, I have had my share of Days of Our Lives watching and thought that their halftime mantra would fit our lives.

Name codes
My husband = Lover
Child #1 = Nucky
Child #2 = The Sweet Girl (TSG)

Alas, to the children...

I want to start with Halloween ... figure that is better bang for your buck than going back to the birth of child #1... mainly because it was truly one of Nucky's brightest moments and definitely the best night of her life to date. She was in such a happy-go-lucky mood which says a lot for her very standard terrible-2's attitude and had energy aplenty to run from house to house asking for candy. She started knocking on the door and just pushing her way in as soon as they opened it as if she were a pro. Lover and I took turns taking her to houses and both had such a great time seeing her having such a great time. I think these are the moments you relish as parents. So manyof the things we do for our kids are also for us. I'm attaching a photo of Nucky in TSG's costume 2 years ago... do you think they look alike?

I think I'm gonna start blogging... let's do this thing!