Sooooo Big.....

That's my little girl -- the one who really is quickly outgrowing her stint as "the baby". Here she is sitting in a chair at the table coloring. She's a full-time walker now. Another tiny head bobbing around the corner. She uses her sppon beautifully -- only dropped one piece of Mac and Cheese at lunch today. And she sings songs to herself when she's resting in her crib.


Bye Bye Baby. Hello Big Girl!

Hair Today....

Every night right around 8:00, Gabriella says her good-nights to the group and she and I spend a few minutes in the rocking chair in the dark in her room. I wish her sweet dreams and tell her about the next day -- she answers me very seriously, even though I understand only a few words.

Across the hall, however -- the fun is just beginning. Joe is alone with the older girls. And they like to play "haircut".

They sit him down on the floor and drape his shoulders in scarves and towels. Then they use an assortment of make believe squirt bottles and hair dryers on his head. They pull up 1 inch long clumps of hair and insert barrettes with bows. They comment about how much gray he is getting. And then just as I come across the hall, they pronounce him as "gorgeous" -- and they put their hair styling tools away.

Forget your pick-up basketball games and dump truck races - what Daddy doesn't dream of having daughters who want to play "haircut"?

They do make you gorgeous, Dear -- in more ways than you know.

Another Completed Page ...

I'm like an unstoppable force this year! I whipped together this layout tonight for a challenge over at The Scrapbook Site.

Thanks to Stacy Julian I now have a stack of photos of nothing in particular, just shots I like, and they are ready to be scrapped. (Organizational hurdle overcome!)

So here's a remembrance of a warm summer afternoon -- done in KI Memories Paper and Accessories.

And here's hoping summer gets here soon.

And why did I pick THIS year to resist giving myself a goal for completed pages????

Remember When....

This online Donna Downey class has fueled my productivity again! During the course of the past two nights I completed two accordian albums. The topics are Remember When you Were 2 (for Francesca) and Remember When You Were 3 (for Sophia). With their birthdays at hand, this was the perfect time to do retrosepctive albums just scrapping cute photos of them.

I am pleased with them -- and all they are is some cardboard (or chipboard in scrap lingo) and SEI papers from the "Aunt Gerti's Garden" set. Getting sooo many pictures scrapped is relieving some of the "I'm so behind" guilt.

Now if I could just get my scrapping "studio" back in order. Today the team from Boyle Oil had to run new pipes from the oil tanks, under the kitchen and out the side of the house. This lengthy and noisy (not to mention expensive) process required removing the ceiling above my scrap desk and taking all the stamps off the wall. As is usually the case with us, the owner who added the kitchen extended the oil pipes with something too narrow and over time the pipe itself has narrowed and they don't do cardiac catheterization on pipes. They just replace. We have lovely new pipes. Hooray.

The Year in Review

This was my homework assignment for Week 2 of Donna Downey's Online Class. I don't think I have ever cropped photos this tightly before but look -- it's done!

Sleeping Beauty

So this is what "bed check" revealed tonight. The new thing this week is to get out of bed and "change" before going to sleep. So this is Francesca minus her pajama bottoms -- but with the addition of black tights and a Princess tutu. She is snuggled next to her Belle doll, holding Pink Bear, with a rhythm stick firmly in her grasp (?). And did I mention the pink fake fur purse stuffed with plastic food that is also in there with her???

When you are 41 you collapse into bed at the end of another exhausting day of work and family. When you are 2, it is simply a continuation of the celebration that is your life. Bedtime can be fun. Big fun. And I always try to remember how exciting life must be with a roommate who is just 1 year older and ready for adventure.

They are sisters and they are friends. And they are having a marvelous time. Especially at bed time.

Maybe I should slip into a tutu tonight.....

Happy Birthday, Andra!

Hope your day is absolutely fabulous!

Thinking About Summer....

Since it's time to register for this summer, I thought I'd go ahead and scrap Sophia's (fabulous) experience at camp LAST summer! I was very inspired by this month's kit from "Little Red Scrapbook" -- some new Gin-X papers and chipboard accents. Much hipper stuff than I would select for myself.

The wind chill outside is 15 degrees tonight. Our mild winter tease of Spring is over. It's nice to think summer -- and get these pictures scrapped!

The Farm Show

We took the girls to the Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg today. It's the 90th edition of a show that looks awfully familiar to this displaced Southerner! They had a ball walking through the exhibits with Grandpa Tony, petting some of the show cattle and sheep, and eating fresh dougnuts made with Pennsylvania Potato Flour.

It's amazing they had the energy for the day after the announcement last night from Sophia and Francesca that they were going to "stay up all night". (Seems as if they skipped grade school all together and landed in college.) They weren't prepared for my answer which was "That is a GREAT idea, but be sure to do things quietly in your room while Mommy sleeps. (They were expecting a little more resistance, I suppose.)

Anyway, the best laid plans, etc. etc. They were both out for the night in their individual beds and snuggled under the covers clutching Bears by 9:45. Sophia reported to me today, "There just isn't enough stuff in our room for us to stay up and play all night". Ahhh, so that was the problem.

Sweet Dreams.

Tag --

Donna didn't exactly tag me -- but I'll play!


Four jobs you’ve had in your life:

-Television News Producer
-Department Store Go-to Girl (Personnel, sales floor, switchboard, etc.)
-Babysitter

(Turns out I've only had 3 -- ever.)

Four movies you would watch over and over.

Bull Durham
Forrest Gump
Philadelphia Story
Four Weddings and a Funeral


Four places you have lived:
Penn Valley, Pa
Philadelphia, Pa.
Raleigh, NC
Westwood, NJ

Four TV shows you love to watch:

Action News at 5
Action News at 11
Action News at 6am
"Curb Your Enthusiasm"


Four places you have been on vacation:
London
Paris
St. Martin
Disney World


Four websites you visit daily:
CreatingKeepsakes.Com
TheScrapbookSite.com
6abc.com
cnn.com


Four of your favorite foods:
Shrimp
Freshly baked bread
Brownies
Cheese Enchiladas

Four places you would rather be right now:
At Starbucks, by myself, with a book and a latte
Any beach, any where
A Scrapbook Store
North Carolina

DD tagged four bloggers -- I'm just tagging HILLARY!

Big Girl Bed

Here's something else that happened during all the confusion. Francesca moved into a big girl bed. Actually, she is such a short little peanut we selected a toddler bed for her -- she has difficulty climbing into Sophia's big twin bed.

It seems like just a few days ago we were using three cribs -- and now we are down to just one. There's just a touch of sadness as baby things disappear.
Due to a packing accident Gabriella also gave up her nighttime bottle of milk Christmas week. No fanfare. Just gone. More baby things lost.

My friend Stephanie is a great Mom who told me the other day. "We spend their enitre lives teaching them to leave us. From the minute they hand them to us in the hospital we begin the process of teaching them to sleep alone, then eat alone -- and so it goes until they become independent people. That's the job. And it sucks."

You're right, Steph. Some days it does suck. But that's the job.

Christmas Project

I actually finished this last week but it got lost in the medication/nebulizer/sleepless night vortex. Anyway -- this is what I did with this year's Christmas Cards. I totally copied Hillary, who scraplifted Ali Edwards. What we all did was punch squares out of the cards we received and put them into a grid on cardstock. I LOVE it and I have preserved so much of the Christmas joy that came through my mailbox this year.

On the sick front:

Gabriella -- up a few times last night, not too serious. Breathing much better.
Francesca -- up several times last night to cry, reasons unknown.
Sophia -- Upstairs in my spot in our bed next to Joe. (Very strange. Even as a sick baby wanted nothing to do with sleeping anywhere but her own bed.) She woke up while I was at work and told him her ear hurt. We cannot shake this post-Christmas bug. Looks like we are headed to the pediatrician in the morning for treatment of our very first ear infection.

And so it goes....

Moving Onward and Upward

We are marching past sickness into the rest of our lives! Here is the altered planner I did for my "Donna Every Week of the Year" online scrapbooking class. I have been buying these planners for years and never considered "altering" one. That's why Donna teaches the class and I just participate.

The very fact that I am posting projects must tell you that we are out of the dark side. In fact, the little patient is napping right now and the croup twins are playing shopping. Last night's score was Gabriella up twice -- Francesca up twice. But the happier news is Joe took care of Gigi which meant two things -- I only had to run in for Francesca and the baby really does go back to sleep faster for him than me -- I think it has to do with the absence of snuggling. Anway -- he's feeling a little tired. I had about five combined hours and can once again take on the world.

Sick Ward Update

I only slept today from 6:00 a-m until 8:15 a-m so forgive me if this makes no sense.

I took Gabriella back to the doctor yesterday because she clearly isn't breathing any better, she desperately needs some sleep, and the nebulizer treatments are a disaster. The bottom line from them: no matter how hard she fights the only treatment they prescribe is the nebulizer and I'm the only parent who has come through the practice in the past five years who hasn't been able to administer this (?????).

Then the nurse tried to take G's pulse with the little monitor that straps onto her finger. Except she kicked and screamed and cried and thrashed so hard they declared "she's strong" and moved onto her toes. That didn't work either. So they gave up on checking her pulse. Yet they insisted I try to immobilize her and get her to breathe with the mask. It is almost impossible to keep her from crashing to the floor but the nurse keeps insisting to me "she'll stop having the tantrum and settle down". Sure , just like for you and the pulse thing???

They let me stop after 5 of the 10 minutes. The baby has a cut across her forehead from the mask (which even they stopped trying to put ON her head because she was choking herself with the elastic) and a cut across her entire forearm from being restrained. They are unmoved by her Italian temper and tell me to up the treatments to 4 times a day -- try one when she's sleeping they say. I say if she were sleeping we wouldn't be here.

I did what I could. I got 5 more minutes of it into her last night. But a side effect of the medication is agitation and jumpiness. She screamed most of the night. She thrashed from midnight to 2:30 am so I took her out of her room again and downstairs to keep from waking everyone. We paced until 6:00 a-m when she finally gave up. I laid her down -- myself as well, but she was up again a few minutes after 8:00 and I had to get back to work and so it goes.

Sophia and Francesca had low-grade fevers and sound like the croup twins -- didn't even get out of their jammies yesterday. Sophia's cough also makes her vomit which is a very unpleasant side effect.


Well, that's enough happiness from here. Hope things are better where ever you are!

Dr. Mom

That's me this week. This is a brief stop between taking temperatures and administering medications.

Gabriella's lungs are inflamed and are going into spasms. This explains why she hasn't been able to string 2 hours of sleep together since Friday. We brought home a "nebulizer" machine from the doctor so that she can breathe in albuterol. The nebulizer has a compressor and a mask -- they told me just to sit her in the high chair and let her watch a favorite video with the mask strapped onto her head for 10 to 30 minutes 3 times a day. Yeah. Right. How about Joe has to pin her arms down while I immobilize her head. That's the reality. After watching the miner updates and Penn State (triple overtime) all night I got her down to sleep at 4:30 am today and she slept until 8:30am. Her longest rest yet. Perhaps we have turned a corner.

Francesca is running a low-grade fever and has a little bit of a cough. She spent the day on the couch but has recently rallied and is asking for cookies.

Sophia is just at runny nose stage and is outraged at all the attention Gabriella is receiving. She tries to out scream the nebulizer machine when it is running.

My own fever is gone but the cough and sinus infection remain. I keep thinking if I ever get any rest I might feel better. But with working these late night "actual holidays that aren't company holidays" -- along with the "not really a holiday but observed by the company holiday for everyone except those people who normally have Mondays off" -- and walking the floors all night after leaving work at 2:00 am -- it's all hard to tell.

Today was my day off -- the very desirable Wednesday after New Year's Day that everyone must have been looking for.. The only consolation is I won't be there for the Rose Bowl tonight.

Think healthy thoughts for us. And thoughts of sleep. Call anytime. Chances are I'm awake.....

(P.S. I'd like to post a picture of Gabriella with the mask on her head but she's really not cooperating....)

Pajama Party

That's where we went this morning. The White Dog Cafe throws a New Year's Brunch and you are encouraged to attend in your pajamas. Such a hoot!

Now it's off to do my first shows of the year on this "not a company holiday" holiday!