Counting Down

Had a doctor appointment today. I'm dilated to a 1. Which means nothing except something is starting to happen. We went ahead and scheduled an induction on the 16th. Woohoo! So if she doesn't come before then, we'll at least know that she'll be here by the 16th. Let's get this show on the road!

Again

The girls ran away again today.  It was bad. Audrey was in her undies of course (although it was in the mid 60s today, so no snow on the ground or anything).  They went, not just down the corridor, but down three flights of stairs and down two other corridors.  I couldn't find them.  Long story short, I did find them.  I was very upset.  What am I going to do with them??  This time Audrey was the escape artist . . . unlocking both locks and silently leading her sister to wander alone with her.  It was about 5:30 when all sorts of cars are zooming into our parking garage as people come home too . . .

Horrible experience.  Any advice??

PS  I'm making this sound like I was much more calm than I really was.  I'm 8 months pregnant, remember.  Running frantically looking for two missing children was NOT at the top of my to-do list today.  And certainly carrying them up two flights of stairs in a major hurry when I DID find them was not something I was excited about.  And sobbing my head off upon getting them back inside, totally at a loss for words (and totally winded), made me utterly exausted to the core. 

Don't Call Child Services, Please

I promise I'm not a bad mother.  BUT just now Jane ran away.  And Audrey tried to bring her back.  So if you think my kids were just running down our apartment corridor in bare feet and underware on the evening of a freak snow day . . . you would be absolutely correct. 

You would also be correct if you think Jane probably didn't understand a word of the major scolding I just gave her and smiled triumphantly the whole way through it. 

I guess that's what I get for drowning out Audrey bossing Jane in the other room (pretty sure she was yelling at Jane to not open the door and not run out the door and not run down the corridor) . . . it was the slamming of the front door and the silence that followed that jolted me out of my daydreaming (or whatever it was I was doing).  Thanks for big sisters who try to keep their little sisters in line!  :)  Sometimes I don't appreciate this enough.

PS

On March 19th Jane had her first official haircut (if you don't count a few trims she had on her bangs).  I did it myself.  And it looks cute.  She was getting that toddler mullet, and it had to go.  Thank goodness I didn't ruin it!  Yes, I saved the locks of precious red hair to put in her baby book . . . which I realized neither Jane nor this new baby have one!  Have to do something about that.

Oh yeah.  It snowed today.  It was in the mid-70s on Friday.  And today it snowed.  What's the world coming to?

Our Little Leprechaun Turns 2!

I've never really celebrated St. Patrick's Day before.  I've usually managed to wear green, but that's about it.  But this St. Patrick's Day, and every other St. Patrick's Day from here on out, will be a big celebration for our family.  It's Jane's birthday!  :)

We wore green.  And we had pancakes.  I didn't dye them green because I thought maybe the girls wouldn't eat them if they looked weird . . . which they do sometimes when I'm trying to be a fun mom.

Anyway, the girls LOVE pancakes and ate TONS.

Oh, these are the pillows I covered for our couches.  We picked up some plain ones from Ikea, and had a couple black ones that were starting to burst at the seams.  So, I found this fabric to cover them with and to help pull all of our white and green and neutral and black colors together.  They complament our dining room rug nicely too.

The striped fabric coordinated with this other pattern.  I love it.  So does David, which he tells me often . . . and I love that too.  I was very proud that I did this little sewing project all by myself in one night.  Actually I was amazed with how fast it took me to cover 6 pillows!!  And thats from buying the fabric at 8:30 at night, washing, pressing, cutting the pieces, and sewing.  I finished at midnight.  And I don't even sew.  I think the recent HUGE sewing project I recently did with my Mom helped my confidence with the sewing machine.  I'll talk much more about that weekend later, but I wanted to wait until the finished project was ready to show off.  :D

Speaking of showing off . . .

The birthday girl.

Being cute.

Always.

What a lovely little red head!

Oh yeah, back to the festivities. 

It was so cute watching her try and blow out the candles.  You know how little kids blow by going "fffffffff" and mostly spitting.

Despite the spit, we ate cake anyway.  :)

Now Jane is catching up with her sister and is being such a big girl already.  (Notice the green cups in honor of the day?)

About this cake . . . I had big plans to make this cake so cute.  However, when I dumped it out of the pan to put it on the cake stand it completely fell apart.  So I scooped it back into the pan and just covered all the crumbs with frosting and called it good.  The nice thing is I don't care.  And neither did anyone else.

Jane got a dolly bed for her birthday.

Had to put Chicken to bed to try it out.

Audrey plays with the doll bed much more than Jane.  We've only had a few fights over the bed, so it hasn't been too bad.

Happy birthday, Jane!

Costumes and More Adventures

Audrey came to me the other day and brought me several costume things.  She instructed me to "put these on Jane" and to put the other ones on her.  Then she requested that I take a picture of the two of them.  Jane was happy to oblige.  :)

Jane climbing . . . I think I pretty much spend most of my day folding and refolding these blankets . . .

So, we had an incident today.  I came in here to start loading pictures for this blog.  I had just confronted Audrey over her latest drawing in the playroom, mostly just an addition of her last horrible permanent marker attack, only this time it was with dry erase and she was able to clean it up by herself (but she had to "pay me" with her dollhouse, a major blow for her).  I set Jane up at the table with a bag of junk food to keep her occupied, but I'd forgotten that the confiscated pen that Audrey had used was still on the table . . .

The Cheetos were abandoned.

I came back out a few minutes later to see if Audrey had finished cleaning up her mess to find this.

Is it just my children or do all kids have a fascination with drawing all over EVERYTHING!?

Upon noticing that I had noticed her, Jane said "I dwaing on my sippy, Mama."

Oh, Jane.  If you only knew how cute you are.  And how incredibly difficult it is to stay mad at you for more than about 2 seconds.  (It's a darn good thing she doesn't know that or we'd all be in BIG trouble!!) 

Our Hard-working Man

I forgot to post this picture with the last set that talked about where David worked like I'd intended to do.  He works so hard and looks so handsome doing it. 

Ikea Loot

Our Saturday trip also included a quick jaunt up to Ikea (we were pushing it because the kids were already done for the day or else we would have stopped and hung out with Brent and Cheryl probably), which is always fun.  On our list was a nursing chair and this buffet (among other things). 

After we finally got Grandma's mirror up, we decided it was time to get something to put the glassware she gave me in, and to fill that huge space underneith the mirror with something.  Luckily the doors lock. 

I think it looks great!  And it matches our table and bookshelf.  The white milk glass looks really nice with our chairs and the etching in the mirror too.  I just think it's great.

We acutally got to use it as a buffet on Sunday when we had company.  It was nice that people didn't have to march into the kitchen to fill up their plates since the kitchen was a mess.

Saturday with Dad

Saturdays we always run errands as a family.  It's gotten to be really fun.  We make a list, plan our route, pack lunch and snacks, set up the GPS, and head out. 

This past Saturday we got to run to Dave's office to pick something up he'd left there.  We'd been there before when he worked there in the summer.  But it was fun to see where he worked now "for real."

I say "for real" because he now has a fancy, shiney name plate by his office door.

He had his diplomas and his license framed (is that what that is?) so they look all spiffy and professional in his office now.  I think they look nice.

It's not a big office, but it's not bad!  It looks like he acutally does some work in here.  All his white boards and calenders were full, and the post-it notes were convincing.  Our family pictures added a nice touch. 

I think it's safe to say he's a grown-up now.  Does that mean I'm a grown-up now too? 

It must be, because I have almost 3 of these now.  Sometimes it's hard to believe we're not college students or newlyweds any more. 

Jane didn't have her binkie to fall asleep with on the way home that night, so she improvised.

Park Day

The weather is lovely here now.  Living in Dallas does have a few advantages I suppose.

Hair

Little Miss Independent

Today Jane's favorite phrase was "I do it by myself!"

Shorty

Jane spent the entire night throwing up.  It was sad.  She took a nap today, but probably not a long enough one.

I went in to check on her because I could see her starting to get restless (which usually means she's about to throw up).  This is how I found her.

She looks funny in that big shirt when she's standing up anyway, but seeing her sitting there like this made me laugh.  She just looked so tiny.

We'll just have to start calling her Shorty. 

Something Old = Something New (For Mom and Dad)

Here's the mirror!  I think it looks really great there.  I would have put it lower but I didn't want the girls to mess with it.  Ultimately, wherever we decide to live, I'll put a nice table under it or something.  The white etching complements our chairs well.  I'll have to look into getting the corner pieces polished up like Dad said. 

Here's a look at what I did with those pictures (see the "before" picture below). 

This is the one I replaced the glass in.  I had to use watercolors and pencils and things to fix the big white scratch that was in the middle of this top one.  Can you tell?  It's nice that they both have glass in them now.

Overall, I just really like how the white makes the pictures a bit happier and not so creepy and overgrown.  :)  It seems to make the green and the pinks and yellows in them a bit prettier too. 

What do you think?