Fiona's 3rd Birthday Party

This afternoon Grandma, Grandpa, Cathy, Erik, Ryan, Emily and Andrew came over to celebrate Fiona's 3rd Birthday! She'll be 3 on Tuesday so today was the family party day.

Side note: Happy Birthday to my brothers David and Robert whose birthday is today! I counted on my fingers and I guess they are 26, which seems like it could not possibly be true! Well, Happy Birthday anyway! ;-)

Now a random assortment of photos will follow.

Grandma and Grandpa gave Fiona a castle tent and she was so excited! Here she is crammed in there with all of her MN cousins...

Cathy and Erik and their kids gave Fiona a really cool glow in the dark drawing toy which she had a lot of fun playing with inside her tent.

Adele got a present too and was really excited about it!

I made a rainbow cake... Fiona likes rainbows a lot right now and was really happy about the cake! I was happy that I managed to get it all baked and assembled in time despite the 45 minutes of unplanned sheltering we did in the basement due to the nearby nearby tornado.

I didn't make enough frosting to cover the whole thing (turns out 6 layers is a LOT of cake), but on the plus side you could see the rainbow on the outside too :-)

It was so fun inside!

Nom nom nom nom nom. All that food coloring and sugar and birthday excitement made for a pretty fantastic party! Here we all are (except Ben, who is taking the photo).

Happy Birthday Party Fiona! I can't believe you are almost 3!

Adele learns new tricks

Adele is doing really well in Physical Therapy. She has two people who come out - one is the PT who comes every 2 weeks, and the other is a case manager who comes once a month to see how she's doing in all other areas, and give advice and ideas etc. Both ladies are wonderful, and have been a great help to her.

We have periodic goals for things we want her to do by the next visit, and the last one was for her to be crawling at least 5 feet on her hands and knees. The visit was this morning and she pulled it out at the last minute! Yesterday she started crawling on hands and knees! She still defaults to belly crawl, so we have to work on it more, but she's doing it! Check her out!

She started out doing this goofy hoppy crawl...

But she quickly got the idea that she should move her knees with her hands...

Today the other teacher who comes gave me some handouts about oral-facial exercises and games to strengthen her face muscles to help her with talking (I know, who knew you could do exercises for that?!) but then at dinner time Adele made it pretty clear that her oral-facial muscles were working quite well already...

I'm hoping this is not going to be her new favorite game!

Fiona and the worms

Recently Fiona has been really interested in all things creepy and crawly. She gets super excited to find spiders in the house, and when we spot ants on the sidewalk she crouches down to watch them and says "ooohhhhh, cuuuuuute". I'm happy she likes bugs in general, and luckily she also has some sense and DOES NOT like centipedes. She doesn't freak out when she sees them (unless she's screaming on the inside and trying not to panic like I am) but she says they are yucky and gross. And they are.

Anyway, yesterday I was doing some dandelion eradicating (more on that later) and found some worms for her to see. She was very happy and excited about this and wanted to hold them. Here are some videos that I hope you enjoy as much as I do :-)

(Yes, I know they are sideways. Yes, it's possible I will NEVER remember that the camera needs to be horizontal.)

In the second video she's singing "sleeeeep in my hand, sleeeep in my hand". And later the worm did indeed sleep in her hand. If you're using "sleep" as a euphemism for "squished to death by an overenthusiastic toddler". Note to self: only let her hold big fat worms, they seem to be more resilient to her love. Poor little worm.

Our week (the parts I photographed anyway)

This week we did some things. Here are some of the things we did that I took photos of (thus enabling me to remember we did them).

Adele's first ponies!

Could this girl be cuter? Um... nope!

Fiona was wearing jeans for most of the day then after a visit to the bathroom decided to change into tights and spin around.

I was having a hard time making the shutter go fast enough to get a non-blurry picture and not having it be super dark, but I'm practicing.

We went to the library (surviving a torrential rain storm on the way) and had fun playing with their toys...

Fiona enjoyed her post-library cup of tea...

Adele loves this toy so much!

I am so impressed that she can follow instructions now, and that dancing is really funny!

Well, those are the photographic highlights! Now it's the weekend. have a good one!

Mother's Day!

Today we had a nice Mother's day together. I got to sleep in this morning until after 9am, and it was wonderful! We had cinnamon rolls for breakfast and then I got to open some presents!

Ben gave me this gorgeous bunch of irises - my favorite flower.

And a CD of The Lonely Island - a band that is often on Saturday Night Live. According to NPR they are "the hottest thing in fake hip hop". They sing really entertaining songs that are not the least bit family friendly and I definitely can't listen to it with Fiona in the car. They are so funny, and one of the guys who sings with them - Andy Samberg - is also an SNL cast member. I kind of have a giant crush on Andy Samberg, and luckily Ben felt that it was unlikely enough that I'd actually meet and manage to seduce him to to give me this...

Oh yes. Your eyes do not deceive you. That's a framed picture. Best. Gift. Ever.

As a side note, I asked Fiona on Friday if Daddy had got me a present and she told me that he had, and it was chocolate cake. Turns out he was scrambling this morning to find something, so she totally covered for him.

We went for lunch together at El Loro Mexican Restaurant. I had a Mother's Day Margarita. It may or may not have been before noon. I really can't say. It was delicious.

That afternoon we went over to Ben's parents house to hang out with his family. The ice is finally melted on the lake, Bill built beautiful new railings on the deck, they had the yard landscaped and it is looking gorgeous. I'm looking forward to when it's a little warmer and we can hang out out there.

We had dinner together and hung out until Fiona and Adele were tired. Fiona fell asleep in the car and we were able to pop her straight into bed. I hereby retract my previous statement about the Andy Samberg photo. Being able to avoid the 30-45 minute bedtime routine and get Fiona straight into bed is the best gift ever! Sorry Andy...

It was a lovely day, but the best part of all is really not the flowers or the CD or getting Fiona to bed with minimal fuss - it's the reason that each of those things were a part of my day. It's this girl, who amazes me every day with how smart and funny she is:

And it's this girl who is growing into a sweet little thing who is easygoing and cuddly and has a goofy sense of humor:

My sweet girls :-)

Happy Mother's Day to Me!

Polkadot Pancakes

Without going into too much detail Fiona has been having some issues with pooping and after a talk with the nurse I've been making attempts to steer her more away from dairy, which she LOVES and more towards fruit, vegetables and whole grains. She does eat a fair amount of cereal and oatmeal and toast, and eats lots of fruit already but is kind of lacking in the veggies department and so I've been thinking of ways to add more of these foods in in fun, enticing ways. For example, I have been offering her healthy oatmeal whole grain cereal that I call "happy square snacks" and last night's dinner attempt... polkadot pancakes.

Now just so you know, we actually never have pancakes for dinner (and rarely for breakfast), but I thought it could be a fun thing for a change, and could incorporate a healthier addition. Ben works late on Tuesdays so this was just for the girls. He's grateful for that. Here's a visual...

Yeah, those are peas. If your inital reaction was "eeeeew" then you've pretty much summed up what Fiona thought. This meal may go down in history as one of my worst ideas yet. Fiona actually eats peas pretty well when they are in a bowl, and adores pancakes, so what I did was ruin two foods that she usually likes to create a gross food that she would not eat. Total. Failure.

Still, she made a good attempt when given some syrup for dipping (yes, this makes it completely 100% unhealthy) and then did have strawberries for dessert, so all was not lost. And today she pooped 5 times (FIVE! That should tell you something about the state of the poor girl's bowels) so hopefully things are looking up overall. Don't worry. I'll keep you posted.

Chair Quest

Ben and I have been looking for a new office chair. We looked at Ikea, but sometimes being in Ikea makes me feel like someone is vacuuming out my soul and I did not have the energy for it that day*. Later that week we went to Office Something (Max? Depot? I cannot tell them apart...) and checked theirs out. They had a lot, and a good selection of filing cabinets, which we will shop for another day. Can't buy too much office furniture in one day!

*Dang it, Ikea, I don't want to tour your whole store every time I go in! Sometimes I just want to buy a chair and go home!

Fiona and Adele had a nice time testing out all the chairs. Fiona has one criteria: how fast does it spin. Adele is more picky, she also likes to see how they taste. I feel bad for the suckers who end up with the half price demonstration models because they're all chewed on and drooly.

Next to these fine specimens there was also this sad sack old chair.

That thing looks like it's seen better days. Which is pretty bad considering that it's brand new! It looks like the kind of chair you'd find in a university basement with a pipe smoking 112 year old professor sleeping in it. The funniest thing is that the sign on it says it's certified by the American Chiropractic Association*. So it looks like crap but it's really good for your health. Kind of like cottage cheese.

Side note: list of websites that show up in a google search for "ACA" before the American Chiropractic Association:

American Counseling Association

American Camp Association

American Correctional Association

Association of Credit and Collections

Adult Children of Alcoholics

American Canoe Association

I'm telling you, "ACA" is the poster acronym for groups that help people with problems. Except the Canoe Association. Those guys are beyond help.

Anyway, after rejecting the saggy old man chair and selecting tight-seated young looking chair, we took it home and Ben built it. It's a great chair! Fiona likes it even though it's not super spinny.

When we were collapsing the box to put in the recycling I spotted this on the side:

All these things are things I would expect to see on a chair box... except for the very last thing. Why is there a winky face after "tension adjustment"? Just what kind of "tension adjustment" are we talking about here??!