Wiggles

So, big news is that I moved Kasey into her own room last night. The dog were forever waking her up, she seems to be much more sensitive to noise than Courtney was at this age. She also would go to bed before me, so when I came to get ready for bed, she would start stirring then also. So, it seemed like a really logical step to move her into her room.

At first it was tough, I had to go in and rock her about 3 times but she finally crashed for the night about 9pm. She did wake up earlier than normal, she was up at 1:30am, so I was worried she wouldn't make it through the rest of the night, but she did! After I put her back down about 2am, she slept until about 6:45am. So, looks like she is making the transition ok!

Today was a big day for Courtney. My friend received free tickets to the Wiggles show, but she already had tickets. So, she gave the 4 free tickets to me! I got a babysitter to watch Kasey and Courtney and I went with my friend Kate and her daughter Hannah. Hannah is 1 & 1/2 so we weren't too sure how she would do, but she made it most of the way through before losing interest. Courtney is not familiar with the Wiggles, neither am I for that matter, but she loved the singing and dancing. The Wiggles will soon be on her favorite channel on TV, Sprout, but not until August, so at this point she doesn't know them.
These guys obviously aren't young anymore, but they sure can move and keep up! It's live singing, dancing and they do gymnastic type stuff, so there were times when they were breathing hard! And they are pretty funny, making stuff up on the fly and cracking jokes, making each other laugh. They sure did look like they were having fun!

3 of the 4 guys are 40-50 years old! You should see them on stage! Pretty impressive! Two of them came right up to us in the audience, and said hi to Courtney (they were walking the isle to say HI to all the kids). She thought that was pretty cool. And of course Courtney loved Wags the dog... No story or plot like with the Elmo shows or Disney on Ice. This was all singing and dancing. They sang Twinkle Twinkle, and had it all dark with a disco ball going. Courtney kept saying "this is my nightime song". (We sing it every night before bed).
Of course the show was scheduled for right during nap time. So after the show we came home, picked up the baby sitter and Kasey, took the babysitter home, came home, at dinner and then put Courtney to bed. For the first time in a LONG time the kids was asleep within about 15 minutes of me putting her to bed! But she had a fun day!

Here is a blurb about them taken from Wikipedia:

The Wiggles are a children's musical group formed in Sydney, Australia in 1991. Their original members were Anthony Field, Murray Cook, Greg Page, Jeff Fatt and Phillip Wilcher.^[1] In 2006, Page was forced to retire from the group due to illness and was replaced by understudy Sam Moran.

Field and Fatt were members of the Australian pop band The Cockroaches in the 1980s, and Cook was a member of several bands before meeting Field and Page at Macquarie University, where they were studying to become pre-school teachers. A school project led to the recording of their first album and tour in 1991. As a result of their background, the group combines music and theories of child development in their videos, television programs, and live shows. Since their inception, other regular characters (Captain Feathersword, Dorothy the Dinosaur, Henry the Octopus, and Wags the Dog) and a troupe called "The Wiggly dancers" have toured with them and appeared in their CDs, DVDs, and television programs.

The group has franchised their concepts to other countries, developed Wiggles sections in amusement parks in Australia and the US, and won several recording industry awards. The Wiggles have been called "the world's biggest preschool band" and "your child's first rock band".^[2] The group has achieved worldwide success with their children's albums, videos, television series, and concert appearances. The Wiggles were named Business Review Weekly's top-earning Australian entertainers for four years in a row and earned AU$45 million in 2007.^[3] They have earned seventeen gold, twelve platinum, three double-platinum, and ten multi-platinum awards for sales of over 17 million DVDs and four million CDs.^[4] By 2002, The Wiggles had become the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's (ABC) most successful pre-school television program.

Kasey

Kasey slept in her own room for the first time last night!!!! Yea! It took her a while to settle down and fall asleep, but once she did she only woke up once overnight, which is pretty standard!

More Courtney-isms

So, the other day when Courtney had her first play date, she was having a hard time leaving. I know she had been having a good time and it was close to lunch, so she was NOT happy about leaving. I said to Ava's mom "she's at the end of her rope". For the next 5 minutes Courtney kept saying "where's the rope?" and looking around.

Monday when I went to pick her up from daycare I walked in the room right as she was becoming unhappy with another kid in the class. The teacher was walking over to them to see what was going on. Courtney looked at the teacher and said "He won't share the liquor". At least that is what I SWORE she said. The teacher heard what I heard too because she looked at me and asked Courtney to repeat what she said. Again Courtney said "he won't share the liquor". Finally the other teacher in the room clued us in that they had been playing with a magnifying glass and Courtney had been calling it "the looker". OOOOohhhhh, he wouldn't share the LOOKER. Sure made us laugh though!

Today, I took her to the dentist to get her teeth checked because of the fall she took this weekend. The dentist put on his gloves and tried wiggling her teeth. One was very slightly loose, but he thinks they will be okay, we just have to watch them.

As soon as we got home, she found her cleaning kit which has a pair of rubber gloves in it, full sized I might add. She puts on her gloves, comes right over to me and says "let me feel your teeth". Man she cracks me up! The things she says.

Here are a few pictures from the girls today:

Tomorrow we go to see "The Wiggles". This should be interesting!

Still here

Notice the fish over to the right now? If you move your mouse around, they will follow it. Also, you can click in the tank to feed them! Enjoy!

So, I have been surviving still without Hubby. I sure do miss him though.

Friday morning we had a play date. One of our neighbors across the street has a little girl 6 months older than Courtney and other littler girl 7 months older than Kasey. So, we ventured over there for a bit. Courtney and the other little girl played really well together. We put them in their swim suits in the backyard. We put out the sprinkler, which they didn't actually use much, but they played a lot with other things. It was nice, we will have to do that again soon with them.

After nap that day we headed to our big park nearby. Courtney's My Gym people were hosting a night in the park. So, we headed out there. It was a nice day, it actually wasn't raining! They brought several things for the kids to do. Courtney didn't actually participate in many of the games but she had a great time watching.

Yesterday we spent the day at my parents house. Courtney always enjoys that. She got to swim in her little pool, played in her clubhouse, and blow bubbles. Other than a minor fall flat on her face that caused some teeth bleeding, she had a GREAT time.

Saturday night I had guests arrive. Our cadet who just graduated, John, had been bringing his girlfriend Jessica over for the past year or so prior to graduation. So, we got to know her well. She emailed me last week and said she was coming to town with her mom on her way to TX and could they stay with us? Well, of course I said yes! So, they are here now. Jessica is currently at a movie with her girlfriends from the Academy and her mom is sitting across the table looking at apartments for Jessica to check out once they get to TX.

Kasey is not napping. She should be napping at the moment, like her sister, but she isn't. Instead she is bouncing in her bouncy seat, talking to the spinning fish in it. She usually is a good afternoon nap taker, but not today. At least so far she is happy and not screaming...

Guess I should run before she starts to scream!

Stay at home mom

So, I am really getting the hang of this stay at home mom thing! And keeping myself busy while Hubby is away.

Today was the first Thursday morning that Courtney didn't go to day care. Which worked out really well because she had an appointment at 9am with her pulminologist. Which went really well! She can finally come off her Flovent! And she doesn't have to see him again unless we need to! YIPEE! One step in the right direction!

After that, we headed off to the library. Thursday's they have Toddler story time, plus during the summer they have activities for kids at 10:30am. So, we did story time at 10am, which she enjoyed. She didn't participate, but she really enjoyed being there.

Then at 10:30am we went and joined all age kids in their big community room. This lady brought in her "Critters" from her "Critter Caravan". She taught us and showed us her snakes, chinchillas, rats, mice, tarantula, hedgehogs, frogs, and a few others I can't remember. Oh, and hissing Cockroaches. Courtney loved it! She was so attentive to what was going on. And she was so excited when we got to pet the hedgehog at the end.

A kid from her day care class was there. And our neighbors were there with their 2 boys! It was great! My neighbor clued me into a few other free fun kid events upcoming.

So, I am building my resources of free and fun activities to do during the week! I just found out that our local library also does Baby story time for kids under 1 on Monday mornings. That will work out great for Kasey and I, because Courtney will be in day care! I look forward to doing more and more of these kinds of activities with my girls!

Kasey just blows my mind daily now. Yesterday she grabbed my finger and stuck it in her mouth. She is really big into grabbing things now. And most of the time she puts whatever she grabs in her mouth. Typical baby behavior. But it's amazing how active she it! She is really starting to show some personality the last 2 days! She wants to be involved and talked to and paid attention to, or she fusses! Her eating has started to become more regular, not just all over the board for times. Yucky for me is that one of her current regular eating times is 3:30am. Eh, we will get though it.

We took Hubby to the airport early yesterday morning. Since I was out and about I also took Courtney to daycare after we dropped Hubby off. In the 20 minute drive from the airport to her day care we had this discussion about 3 times:

CC:  Why did we take Daddy to the airport?
ME:  Because he is going on a trip
CC:  Why?
ME:  Because he has to work
CC:  Why?
ME:  So he can make money
CC:  Why?
ME:  So he can buy bananas
CC:  Why?
ME:  So we don't go hungry
CC:  Oh.  I want to see more airplanes...

And the night before he left Courtney woke up in the middle of the night yelling "Mommy, Mommy!"  I went in her room, and you know what she wanted?  She wanted to know where Daddy was...  Ugh.  She should have called for him!

We are such a geeky family.  We just got Courtney an iTouch.  It's similar to an iPod, but you can also have videos (movies).  We got it mostly for our trip to Florida in September, plus car trips to my sister's house or Denver to meet up with my sister.  It is a little bit more than she needs, but it's so much easier on us to only have to carry her iTouch instead of a CD player and a DVD player.

We have a little chef on our hands. Courtney loves to cook! We made pizzas Monday night and let Courtney make her own pizza. She had a BLAST! Here are some pics from that:

Waiting is the hardest part!

And Kasey loves to join us at dinner. She loves sitting at the table with us! We finally brought up the highchair for her and she joins us now at the table for dinner time!

We got a letter from our Doolie from the Air Force Academy.  He injured his knee during the first week of Basic Training, and can't seem to recover from it.  So, he is being sent home.  So, we may not have a Doolie this year.  Hubby emailed the Sponsor office and told them that if they have any cadets needing sponsors we would be happy to help out.  What a bummer!

Birthday Party

Courtney had a birthday party yesterday. Two kids from her class turned 3 recently so they had a joint party at a place called The Little Gym. Similar to My Gym that Courtney currently attends. It was lots of little kids from her day care, about 20 kids. She seemed to have a pretty good time, she is used to that Gym setting and just took off and ran all over. They did little activities and games for the kids. It was cute. After Gym time they did cake and presents.


Kasey has been changing and growing. She rolled over again the other day. Her eating habits have changed a bit, so she must be going through something. She is such a happy baby! She smiles all the time at just about anyone!

I have gotten back into reading recently. I hadn't gotten into a book in a while. I had recently been reading more books about dogs and dog behavior. Those books tend to require too much brain power especially when you have a lack of sleep. So, I went down to a used book store called Hooked on Books. I hadn't been there in years. It's such a great place, they have millions of books. I brought some to trade in to. You can trade them in for credit or cash. I picked up a few "easy" books, like another Janet Evanovich book, and a Nora Roberts book, and a new author I have never heard of. I have already gone through 2 of the books. So, we packed up more books yesterday and we all headed down there.

They have so many books and it's so packed that I can't carry Kasey in her baby seat, I have to put her in the front pack to be able to maneuver through the isles. Hubby found about 6 books, which is great because he reads a lot when he travels. I also found about 3 more books for myself. And they have a large Children's section, so Courtney got 2 books as well. We have a credit with them now, so I know I will go back! It's great!

Hubby leaves again this week for 2 weeks again. I am not looking forward to that. I plan on trying to keep ourselves busy to make the time go by. Not sure how I am going to do that yet, but I will find a way.

Courtney is down to 2 mornings a week now in daycare. Starting this week she will only be there Monday and Wednesday mornings. My friend let me know about the preschool program that our local school district has. Courtney would be able to attend starting this fall, if we can get her in. I had to fill out a large packet of paperwork yesterday and I will mail that back in and hope for the best. I have a feeling it's too close to the beginning of the school year to get her in, but we will try! If we can't get her in this year, hopefully we can get her in for next year. The preschool is right down at the school at the bottom of our neighborhood, so really really close! That would be so wonderful!

Courtney's therapy is going well. I am able to see improvements in her!! We work with her constantly at home to not suck her thumb and work on other exercises with her mouth and lips. She is finally getting to the point where she can blow bubbles! The kid was never able to blow bubbles before! And we have been able to use a band-aid during the day on her thumb to get her to keep her thumb out of her mouth. Night time is another story. That is much more difficult.

We are also really concentrating on potty training. She just really doesn't have the desire to use the potty. She will, but she also doesn't care if her diaper is wet. So, we are struggling a little bit with her potty training. And trust me, we have tried bribes!!!

Have I mentioned before that we have discovered that Courtney is lactose intolerant? Which was really hard because the kid LOVES milk and was always asking for it. But then we were always dealing with stomach aches because of it. I tried her on soy milk and she likes it. So, she is able to drink her milk again! And I am not as worried about her calcium intake. For some odd reason I didn't try her on soy milk for a while so I was worried she wasn't getting enough calcium. She is able to tolerate yogurt pretty well, the pediatrician told us to try yogurt because it has a lower lactose count. So, she can eat her yogurt too, which is good because she loves that as well.

Boy I miss my 8 hours of sleep a night. I know someday I will be able to get them again, but I really miss them now!

Well, I am off to get some housework done!

HOT!!!!

Things have continued to be hectic here. I assume they will be for about the next 18 years.

Big news around our house this week is that I have made the decision to be a stay at home mom, basically. Meaning, I will not be going in to work any more. I will, however, be working a few hours a week from home. And I mean a few, like 5 per week or less unless I need to do something specific for the office. I talked to my boss on Wednesday and worked it out. I also let Courtney's daycare know that she will only be attending 2 mornings a week now instead of 3. That saves us a little bit of money and I get more time with her since I will be home. But it still gives me 2 mornings a week that I will only have Kasey so I can get things done like grocery shopping or doctors appointments. Come fall I may have Hailey join us on Tuesday mornings. Both girls should love that!

Today was supposed to be Doolies Day Out. So, we were supposed to meet our new Air Force Cadet today. However, they had several cadets come down sick and they had to quarantine many of them. Last I heard they had 15 confirmed cases of Swine Flu, but they had over 80 cadets with symptoms. So, because of this, they canceled Doolies Day Out. They did, however, allow us to drop off goodies for them since they weren't going to be allowed off base.

So last night I went to Target and got a bunch of goodies together for our cadet. We are only sponsoring one this year. I put them all in a box. I got him a 6 pack of soda, cookies, candy, chips, gum, nuts and trail mix. It's hard because we don't know him and I don't know what he likes. They are also only allowed the goodies today, so I had to keep it all to small portions. I took it up to the Academy this morning, to the drop off point. There were several people there dropping off stuff and several boxes already put on tables for delivery. I also included a letter telling our new cadet all about us. I hope he was able to find some stuff he enjoys in the box.

I am still enjoying my new car. It is so large! It has so much space! Hubby fits in every row with no problem. Due to the fact that all his friends are about his height, and my brother in law is also, we had to make sure there was plenty of room everywhere. You should see how much head room he has in the Flex. In the Cherokee and the Kia his hair rubs the roof when he needs a haircut! I guess it's a good way for him to know when to get a haircut!

Speaking of which, we still have all our vehicles. I think we are going to keep the Kia and sell the Cherokee. The Kia is a little more practical for the traveling Hubby has to do. I am ready to get rid of something! All vehicles are still insured and everything, so getting rid of one or two would really be nice!

It has been HOT the last few days. This morning Courtney and I went outside briefly and we were melting. She told me she wanted to get in her pool because it was so hot! So, I put up the umbrella, got her in her suit, smeared her with sunscreen and let her play in her pool for about 2 hours. She loved it.

Last night one of our cadets and his girlfriend spent the night. Toby is going to be a junior this year. They both just got back from their "immersion" in Hawaii. I know, tough job! They said they had a BLAST and loved it. They picked up a coconut coin purse, bracelet and hair clip for Courtney. That was so sweet of them! Courtney played with the coconut coin purse all day. Toby loves to come over and play with the girls. He and Scott (our other junior) are some of the first cadets we have had that actually spend most of the time spent at the house with us, instead of mostly in the basement. We really enjoy the time with them, and last night we taught Toby and his girlfriend a new card game and a new board game.

Tomorrow my mom and I are going to go shopping for outdoor play equipment for our backyard. Since I will be staying home a lot more now, it will be nice to have something back there for the girls to play on. Right now it's pretty bare.

Well, I really need to go and give our dogs baths. They stink! Hubby is reading a Perl book to Kasey, it's very geeky, but she is getting her reading time!

Hope all of you are well!

New Car

So, we finally did it. We got a new car. We purchased a 2009 Ford Flex. The color is Ice Blue. It's the lowest end model in the line of Flex's but it has all kinds of fun technology that we have been enjoying. Tomorrow I am going to get my phone set up for the car too! Can't wait!

It has 6 seats (3 rows) and LOTS of room! I can listen to my iPod in it, and the girls have LOTS of room too. It's fabulous. And of course it drives like a dream. It is a large car and we had to rearrange the entire garage so we could fit it in, but hey, it's in! I have named him Guzmen (pronounced Gooz-men). I can finally get Kasey's car seat in without having to tilt her all over the place to get her through the door!




No, we didn't trade anything in, so now we have 4 cars/vehicles and 2 motorcycles. So, we are doing our best to sell some of the vehicles off. The Wrangler may finally be leaving our driveway to move on to greener pastures, or 4 wheeling roads...

Hubby got home from his 2 week trip late Thursday night. Friday morning we packed up the girls and headed to the zoo. Courtney has been asking to go for quite some time. We got out of the house a little later than normal, and by the time we got to the zoo (about 9:45am) we already had to park in the second lot! That is pretty unusual.

I heard that later on that day they actually CLOSED the zoo to more visitors! I have never heard of them doing that! My friend's sister tried to go in the afternoon, and they denied her entrance because they were too full! Crazy!

That afternoon after naps is when we took the girls to Nana and Papa's house and we went to test drive the Ford Flex. It turned into us purchasing it, which of course is never a short process. So, it was a late night for all of us. I was really hoping Courtney would sleep in the next morning, but no such luck. We were going to go to the parade in Monument, but we decided we were all too wiped out to try to go and be in a crowd of 10,000+ people for a few hours. So, we spent the morning at home. This allowed me to get some things done that I haven't been able to do for the past few weeks.

Courtney crashed at nap time pretty fast. And then we actually had to wake her up 3 hours later! We try very hard to keep her on a pretty strict nap schedule which includes not letting her sleep past 4pm. So, at 4pm I went and woke her up, which also worked well, as it was time to head over to the Z's house for a 4th of July BBQ.

We smoked 2 turkey breasts for the festivities, and brought a fruit salad. The girls all had fun together, and as dusk was approaching people started to set off their own personal fireworks around the Z's house. Their house sits in such a way that we had a good view of little fireworks people were setting off (even though they are illegal within city limits). The three girls sat in kitchen chairs lined up along the sliding glass door having a ball watching them. The adults were cracking up listening to them and their comments. We finally told them they were over about 9:30pm and we packed up and headed for home.

Once we got home we put on the Boston show and let Courtney watch the fireworks on TV. She was loving it! She was so excited every time she saw one she thought was pink. Fireworks have been all she has talked about for the last 24 hours. She told us this morning that she wants to see more tonight. It's hard for a 2 year old to understand that fireworks only happen on one night once a year! She should have a blast next year!

It just hit me the other night that in about 2 months she will be 3 years old! How did that happen? How did she grow up so fast? She told me the other day that I am so smart. She is such a riot!

Kasey is growing like a weed too! Hubby put her hair in a mowhawk again after her bath tonight. We can tell when he does this that her hair is really getting long! She is so smiley! She loves to be talked to and be smiled at. It's just so cute!

Well, I still am trying to catch up on things I wasn't able to get done the last 2 weeks. I guess I better go and work on those while I can! I hope all of you had a fabulous 4th!

Made me laugh...

As you know we recently got our pictures taken professionally. We purchased some of the pictures to be done in black and white and framed. I picked them up from the photography place yesterday. Today I took a picture off the wall and hung up the one of our family. Courtney was watching me do all this. I stood back and admired the picture and said something like "there". Courtney looked at me and said "Oh Mom, you are good at this!"

She cracks me up!

My 2 year old!

Sometimes I just have to write the 2 year old's stuff down. The other day I was making her clean up before bed. She wasn't happy with me for making her do so. She also kept getting distracted and would start to play again. So, I told her I was setting a time for 1 minute and whatever was left on the floor when the timer went off was mine. You know what she said? "Unbelievable". Yep, she was not happy with me and she mutters "unbelievable" to herself. My GOD I am in trouble when she is a teenager!

And just for cuteness sake, she still calls a computer an "umpooter". And now she has a Disney song that talks about going to Mars, which she affectionately calls "Nars".

This kid is too big for her own britches!