Obsession

I have always heard of toddlers who had a favorite shirt or some article of clothing they loved. Maris has an obsession. She had a short, but crazy obsession with plastic princess shoes for a while. Aunt Sandy got her a whole set of them for her birthday and she was hooked! She was wearing them EVERYWHERE, running in them, SLEEPING with them tight in her grasp, throwing a fit when forced to put on regular shoes. It was kind of funny at first, but it got out of control! Now, we have moved on to tutu and "na na" shoes. She has been wearing the same tutu and shoes (w/o socks) for 3 days straight, only taking them off to take a bath and then immediately finding them and putting them back on. The other night after her bath, she was delighting in watching her naked shadow dance. Then, all of a sudden she said, "Oh, my na na shoes!" and ran to get them on. Her na na shoes are ballet-looking pink shoes from Payless. She calls them na na because that is what she sings when she dances in them.... "Na, Na, naaa naa...." I will admit, I have not pushed the issue terribly yet. But, her feet STINK! Really bad. So, I'm going to have to do something. Plus, she has several cute dresses and outfits that just don't work with a tutu. Most of the time she is happy just wearing the tutu over whatever else she is wearing. Before this particular tutu, she was wearing tutu-like skirts from her wardrobe that satisfied her. I even convinced her one day that a normal looking skort was a tutu. No such luck the last 3 days. John has put her to bed the last two nights because I was gone. One morning she woke up holding the shoes. I ask him about it and he said she threw a fit when he took them off and he finally just gave them to her in the bed. This morning when she woke up, she was wearing them. So, I don't know if he gave up and let her sleep in them or if she put them on before I got in there. And, the thing is, she gets so much attention when we go somewhere. Everyone comments on the shoes AND the tutu. They tell her she looks like a princess or ballerina, which of course she LOVES. Which reminds me, yesterday I was getting her out of the car and I said, "come on out stinky feet" and she said, "I not Stinky Feet, I baby". Ha!!!

She is a hoot I tell ya! When I picked her up from school the last two times, they said she spent a lot of time doing her ballet moves in front of the mirror. She is funny! Anyway, I figure it won't last too long and it is pretty much harmless......

This is a picture taken with John's phone of Maris clutching to her princess shoes for dear life while reading her bedtime story. Notice she is also wearing the current obsession, the tutu. I don't have a picture of her new na na shoes and tutu combo yet.

Another picture of the princess shoes. Just a typical day at play......

Random Post

I am posting this little story, because I wanted to share with you about Macie's hearing, but also because of 2 funny related stories. I took Macie to the audiologist to get her hearing tested yesterday. She has had a few infections since her tubes fell out. And, since Christmas or so, I have felt like there have been times when she isn't hearing as well as she should be. Anyway... my friend who is an audiologist, urged me to have her professionally screened. (She had been tested at school and pediatrician's office). So, yesterday we went and she has moderate to mild hearing loss, below normal. While at Maris's 2 year check up today, I talked to the Dr about it and she suggested some nose spray and an antihistamine to dry up the fluid in her ears that is causing her not to hear well. I was explaining this to Macie and telling her about the medicines she had to take. I told her they would help her ears get better and she could hear better. She replied: "Then, why am I spraying it up my nose?" Ha! It was so funny! THEN.... after church tonite, Maris was very tired and cranky, but I wanted to stop by the Walgreens drive thru to get the Rx. I took Maris out of the car seat while we waited for the Rx and she was of course not happy to get back in. As we are driving off, she cries: "Where fries??!!!" Ha again! My children know that fries come thru drive thru windows. Oops. Oh well. It's a fact of life, they do come thru drive thru windows, they may as well learn it now. Hee hee. But, back to Macie's hearing... It will be fine once the fluid is gone. If the drugs don't work, she will get tubes again.

And, because I love pictures I am posting some random ones here too.


Macie and Maris at the Livestock Show in their Rodeo shirts.

My little cheerleaders! Eleven 5 year-olds, people!!! They drove me crazy at times, but I loved them! We had a great little season that ended last night with a cool awards night complete with Mavs Man. One of my cheerleaders won a gift card to Target and one won 2 tickets to a Mavericks game.

Maris: "You want me to knock the whole plate off or just throw down the meat?"

That's all for now!

Maris' 2nd Birthday!

I know you expect this, but... I CAN'T BELIEVE SHE IS 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She had a fun day. After a good nap, our family came over and showered her with gifts. We had dinner and then she got to blow out her candle and eat cake! (or lick icing off a cupcake is more like it) She did a great job blowing out the candle too!

(For someone so picky about shoes, she really can work these heels! A great gift from her Aunt Sandy & Uncle Mike).

I had made Macie a ruffley skirt from this site and Maris just loved it. But, of course it was too big and she would get frustrated because it didn't fit her. So, at the last minute, I decided to make her one for her birthday. She loved it! She wore it to Macie's Upward cheerleading game and pranced all over the place. When she got up from her nap and saw all the decorations and cake and stuff, she loved that too. That made me happy, cuz then maybe the two year birthday isn't all for the mom afterall. Ha! Oh, I just love her!

Poor trees!

This is terrible! But, I am thankful we still have our electricity. A bunch of people in the area are out. The snow is really deep and pretty, but oh the poor trees! I don't even think the pictures really capture how bad it is. I am scared more are about to fall. The one on John's car had not fallen at 630 when he checked and then at 7, there it was. We both have colds and he is out there trying to clean it all up. Ugh.

Snow Day!

Oh my goodness! It has been snowing in Arlington ALL DAY! It is so pretty, but is now causing some issues. I couldn't get 5 feet from my drive way today in order to pick up Macie, Mica and Logan. My neighbor had to drive me up there in her pretty new Lexus. I felt so bad with 4 wet kids in there! The truck would just not drive on the slushy snow. Now, tree limbs are falling left and right. I'm not just talking small little limbs! Big huge, half of trees. It's really scary. Almost 1/2 of our tree in the front is covering half our street. And, another huge tree from our house just hit our neighbors house. Our neighbors on both sides have HUGE parts of trees down too. I am sad and scared. I love our trees, so I want them around. But, scared that one is going to come crashing through our roof! Or, smash John's car. (maybe not such a big loss there!) Literally, as a I sit here, I am hearing limbs crash and hit our house with a big boom. Anyway, just writing, cuz it helps me to vent I guess. Here are some pictures of the fun and the ugly. Poor Maris hates the snow, or maybe she just hates that jacket. Ha! We took a big bubble bath after they played in the snow a little.

Broken Bow

Our family needed some refueling and reconnecting! Macie had a 4-day weekend, so we decided to go to Broken Bow, OK. We almost didn't go because of various issues, but I am so glad we did. Sara had suggested (insisted) that I watch Oprah the other day where Peter Walsh was on there helping a family reconnect. We didn't have the same issues as that family, but at the same time, it still hit home. John and I watched it together and (I) decided to make this family trip a reconnecting time. In the show, the family had to go without any tv, computers or cell phones for a certain period of time. So, even though we rented this luxury cabin with FOUR flat screen tvs, we decided (I decided and John agreed) no tv all weekend. Except for the Cowboy playoff game, which I think John wishes he missed. But, anyway, can you believe we did it? In the show, the family was also given 4 other rules to live by. At the end, the family tweaked the rules for something that would work for them. We used this model and came up with our own 5 rules.

We also read through Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. I was always kinda reluctant to read his stuff and John was too. But, we needed something and several people reccmended this. It was a great book! We are going to be putting his ideas into place in the coming month.

I really hope we can stick to all of our little "resolutions" we made this weekend.

So, here are some glimpses of our weekend. It was really fun and I highly reccomend going. We ended up staying an extra night because we loved our cabin so much. Ha! It was a splurge, no doubt. We will have to figure out in our new money makeover how we can do it again though!

We were greeted by this cat at our cabin. At first, we thought it was wild. Obviously, it was not. But, I don't think it had an owner. I was totally going to bring her home! I think I could have convinced John, don' t you? But, she was gone the next day after our bike ride.

This was in our backyard. Blury picture. We roasted hot dogs. Girls got too cold, so we had to do the smores on the inside fireplace.

Picnic in Beavers Bend State Park. Beavers Bend park has rolling rivers with trout fishing and rock throwing, a big beautiful lake, hiking trails, a museum and massive network of ATV trails. There is camping too, but the nearby abundance of "luxury cabins" are just too fun!

We tried a few off-road trails, but bikes with passengers just aren't made for mountain biking. We took these roads through the state park campgrounds. No one was there. We saw a bunch of deer. It was beautiful and fun.

The front of our cabin.

The above 3 photos were all taken with the self timer. We were pretty proud of ourselves. Ha!

All that fun stuff to do, and all Macie and Maris needed was a bucket and some rocks and plants.

Our cabin also had a hot tub. We all enjoyed that every night too. It was chilly outside and it felt great. I usually don't like em and I thought Macie and Maris would hate it. But, I was wrong!

So, have I convinced anyone to go any time soon? If so, let me know, because we left our pack n play there and I want it back! Ha!

Macie's pictures from Broken Bow

Here are some of Macie's photos from our trip:

This is a view of our cabin from the loft.

This was the coolest tree. We saw several like this, growing horizontal and then straight back up.