Thursday, January 28, 2010

I Need Chocolate!

Ansley has a new favorite phrase: "I need __________" (fill in the blank with whatever it may be). Today on two occasions she has walked up to me and said "I need chocolate!" She must either be having one of those days, or she is just a girl after my own heart.

I took her for her two year old pictures this morning, and the whole way there I was telling myself "only buy the $9.95 package, only buy the $9.95 package!" and I was totally ready to do just that. She started out by making that really easy because she would NOT smile for the life of her. Then the photographer got the bright idea to bring in a little talking Elmo and that was it. She took some of the cutest pictures of her life. I couldn't resist. So, I did buy the $9.95 package, with around $40 in extra photos. Oops. Here's a very bad quality preview. They are much better in person. Oh, and they threw in 16 extra free greeting cards, so I was pretty excited!

I couldn't resist this one--it's a typical Ansley look these days!



Monday, January 25, 2010

Movie Day

At the end of my last post, I mentioned Miss Ansley was throwing up. She continued...all night long. Yuck. Friday morning around 6 was the last time she threw up. We tried to make her rest all day Friday, but by Saturday she was back to her perky self. We went ahead and got our babysitter and Jeremy and I went to the movies. Avatar was great by the way. Yesterday, we went to church and then to a carnival at a friend's church. Again, Ansley was as happy as could be and you never would've known she'd been sick. Last night we hosted a mystery dinner with some people from church, and again, Ansley was dancing around being silly.

This morning, she woke up with a scowl on her face and Jeremy thought she seemed shaky. He got her a bottle of milk and she guzzled it. He was commenting on how she must've just been really hungry, when all of the sudden, that entire bottle of milk came back up. She has a low grade fever too. Poor baby.

So today is Movie Day at the Picker house. I have made a big pallet of blankets on the floor and the girls have positioned themselves there for a movie marathon. We currently introducing Ansley to Peter Pan, which was one of Kennedy's favorite movies when she was Ansley's age. Ansley recently asked for some soup, so we set up a tray and she is eating her Dora Chicken Noodle soup while Kennedy eats her sandwich.

Let me also take this time to apologize to anyone we may have spent time with this weekend thinking that she was no longer sick. We abided by the 24 hour rule, and really thought she was fine. I don't know if this is a new virus, or the other one was just fickle, but I hope we don't get anyone else sick, and I am really, really sorry if we do!

Here's a picture or two of the girls on Movie Day.


Thursday, January 21, 2010

Thursday Thoughts

I realize the lighting in this picture is pretty poor, but I thought it was just too cute. Ansley is pretending to be me. I have been entranced in a great book called The Help and I'm afraid my girls may have watched a little extra TV today, so that I could finish it. I just couldn't put it down. Judge me if you will...until you go read it for yourself, then you'll understand! As I was cooking dinner tonight (see I did do something else today, although Jeremy graciously helped me) I heard Ansley say "I read mommy's book" and this is what she was doing. How cute is that?

However, what wasn't cute is what happened as we were finishing dinner. The past couple of days Ansley has not had much of an appetite. After forcing a couple of bites in her mouth, we found out why. Apparently she has had a tummy ache. It didn't take her long to cover herself, the kitchen floor, and the kitchen sink (after Jeremy grabbed her and carried her to it) in vomit. Yuck. Jeremy wins husband of the year award though, as he cleaned EVERYTHING up while I gave her a bath. There are just some things I don't handle real well. Vomit is one of them. I'd rather deal with poop. Seriously.

Ansley and I were supposed to go finish our "diaper study" tomorrow. She got selected to be part of a market research study for size 4 diapers. We have gone for 2 hours on 2 different days this week, and she has had to wear a saline-filled diaper and play with other kids. Tomorrow was supposed to be the last day of it, but now I have had to reschedule to next Tuesday. That means we will have to wait until then for the $240 check they are paying us! Awesome deal huh?

What really stinks though is thinking we'd be getting a $240 check tomorrow, we hired a babysitter for Saturday night so we could go see Avatar. I think we have only hired a babysitter 3 or 4 times since we have lived here (over a year and a half!) not because we don't like to go on dates, but because it is so expensive! By the time Jeremy and I have gone to dinner, a movie, and paid a babysitter, we feel like we can't do it again for another six months! We just don't have extra money in our budget for that very often! We do take advantage when grandparents are in town though and try to go out for a little bit. We understand the importance of us going out by ourselves, we just wish it didn't cost an arm and a leg! Having said that, hopefully Ansley will be better, because we still plan on going on our date. At least we should be getting that nice check on Tuesday!

Kennedy has gone almost a week pull-up free at night! We accidentally forgot to put a pull-up on her one night last week and she woke up the next morning dry as a bone! So we decided to give it a go! The next night however, she ended up in her sleeping bag due to an accident. We have started waking her up before we go to bed, usually around 11 or 12, to take her potty, and this seems to have solved the issue. We are very proud of her!

That's pretty much what's been going on around here. Ansley's big number 2 birthday is coming soon, and we are working on the preparations for that. We are just having a small family party, but it will have a Snow White theme, per Ansley's request. Well, the girls are in bed and we just heard Ansley throwing up again. This could be a long night.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Friday Night Concert

Tonight the girls were waiting for some friends to come over and play. While waiting, they started putting on a concert for us with our Wii microphones. Enjoy.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Anybody still out there?

Wow! It's been since November 30th that I posted! That shows you how busy the month of December was! Between decorating, parties, baking, packing, wrapping, traveling to Omaha and Peoria, having three Christmas's, 15 inches of snow, celebrating our ninth anniversary, unpacking, undecorating, New Year's, and trying to rest a little, we've been crazy busy!

Although we were super busy, we had a great month, and the girls really enjoyed and got into Christmas this year. They got tons of great toys and have had lots of fun playing with them. They also helped me go through their old toys and decide which ones they could part with and give away. Then we reorganized their rooms and the basement to find places for everything. That was a task!

Kennedy went back to school this morning and Ansley and I are enjoying our quiet time together. We are getting ready to go out to get Miss Ansley a haircut. The poor child has had a mullet for quite some time and in honor of her almost turning two, I am going to get someone to attempt to fix it. We'll see what happens.

That's right, Ansley is almost two! It's so hard to believe! I've got to figure out the details to her birthday party here soon. Unfortunately, someone else around here has to celebrate her birthday next week, and it's the first birthday I am not real excited about. There's something about having a 2 as the first number in my age that I like so much better than a 3. I think it's because I can remember my parents and their friends in their 30's, and it makes me feel a little old. (Sorry Mom!)

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures for the day. The first is a picture of the girls sitting around their new table from Grandma and Grandpa Cordry, eating their breakfast. Notice we had company at the table as well. The second picture is Ansley's hair, this morning. Cute, isn't it?