Having a "BALL"!

We finally got the ball tent that we are borrowing from Reagan and Reilly cleaned out this weekend. It was really dusty from being in the basement when we had our drywall sanded. We put Addison in it and she loved it. She kept kicking her feet and flailing her arms.

Presley is such the little artist. Do you notice how well she is holding the pen to her MagnaDoodle? She did this all on her own. I have never showed her how to hold a crayon or anything, it's just the way she always has. I know from teaching kindergarten kids that lots of kids still have to be reminded to hold the pencil correctly when they get to school and she isn't two yet.

She is learning so many new things. Chad and I are amazed everyday it seems. She will say a word she has never said before and we look at each other and say, "Where did she learn that?" It's amazing what she picks up without either of us actually 'teaching' it to her. She really is like a sponge, soaking up everything. She is really into singing with me lately. She says a lot of the words too. She can sing: Twinkle, Twinkle - You are my Sunshine - Jesus Loves Me - The ABC's - Head, Shoulder, Knees and Toes - and also the Days of the Week and Months of the Year songs pretty good. I know she is doing the days song and the months songs at Daycare too with Aunt Cindy. She doesn't get every word, but I am surprised at how much she does get. She even sings along with a couple of the songs on the radio. :)

Look who is getting close to crawling...

She can get around pretty much all over the room, but not by real crawling yet. She either scoots, rolls, or army crawls backwards to move, but she is getting pretty close to doing it the right way. When she is sitting she now lunges herself forward and falls on her stomach when she sees something she wants. Then she will either rolls her self over to it or scoots herself to get it. Here she crawled out of the ball tent to join her big sister in coloring.

Presley is such a good "mommy" to her babies. Each time I am feeding Addison she has to go get one of her babies and feed it. She takes her job very serious.

Doesn't she look so big here? I'm not sure I'm liking this getting so big and independent thing. She does so good playing by herself and entertaining herself when I am busy. She will just sit and play with her toys talking to them like they are real friends.

Thought I would just add this picture in from tonight. I put her pj's on and then went upstairs to put Addy to bed and when I came back down this is how I found her, honestly.

She did this all on her own. She decided she needed to accessorize. She put on Addison's hat, a necklace, and found my flip flops. :)

I apologize for the randomness of this post. I have been meaning to update this blog and I don't know what it is, but I just haven't felt like it lately. I keep taking pictures thinking I would add them but never have so tonight I just put them all on. Enjoy.

Yea Addy!

Addison has started clapping her hands together when we say, "Yeah Addy." She starts flailing her arms up and down and then eventually gets them together in front of her. She gets her chubby fingers crossed and then ends up just holding them together after a few claps. It's adorable (at least I think so and I'm not at all biased.) I tried to get a video of it tonight, but I wasn't successful. At least I got a picture. I'll keep trying for the video, in the meantime...This picture is from tonight AFTER I put her to bed. She went down kind of early tonight, around 6:40 and then decided it was time to get up again around 9:30. Actually she woke up to eat and was just smiling at me. She probably would've went right down again after she ate, but I was kind of missing her and wanted to play with her some. So I brought her down to the basement for a little while before putting her back to bed.
*******
Oh, and I guess I need to take back the finally.... I'm sure it's just habit now, but she enjoys the alone time in the middle of the night with mommy I guess. I'm sure she would be fine if I just left her, but it's almost just easier for me to get up for a minute or so. So, I guess I will just have to turn down my monitor soon and let her go. I have done that a few times and she does put herself to sleep, so I know she's old enough and capable. I just need to let her do it, I guess.

edit: I didn't get up with her last night when I heard her around 3, and within a minute she had put herself to sleep again and didn't wake up again until I woke her up this morning to get ready. Now I know I just need to let her do it so she will learn to sleep straight through every night. It seems like once I post something about her either sleeping all the way through or waking up again she goes and changes it on me...

new season, new look

What do you think of my new blog look? I get bored and want to change things up every once in awhile. So why not change my blog? Plus, I just needed something that said spring. Hope you enjoy it. Green (especially lime and granny smith) is one of my favorite colors lately.

confessions

I have to admit that I read other people's blogs and I don't have a clue to who these people are in real life. In fact there are some that I have saved as a favorite and I check back in with them often. I feel like I really 'know' these ladies and families even though we have never met or even talked. I don't ever comment on their blogs, so I am just silently stalking. I tend to "snoop" (as Chad says) around at night when the girls are in bed, I've picked up the house, done any school work I have, I am all caught up on my TiVo shows, and I'm bored with what is on live tv. I look around at blogs from Arizona, New York, Indiana, Michigan, California, Ohio, pretty much all over. Some people I knew from college, some I have never met before and am not quite sure how I found their site. Anyways, all of that to say... I stole this from a ladies blog in New York. I admit, it's not mine, I'm stealing it, but I thought it was fun.

1. Go to Google Maps.
2. Go to get directions.
3. Type in directions from New York, New York to Paris, France.
4. Look at line #24.

Made me smile, hope it does you too.

happy heart

overheard tonight while getting dinner ready:

Presley talking to her ballerina duckie - "proud you, luv you" while giving the duck a big squeeze and patting the duck's back.

What a good moment. It made my heart happy. It made me feel even more proud of her. It sure makes me realize all of the things she is picking up even that we don't know about. I'm glad she picked up on this one. :) {smile}

In a not so happy heart moment - since the weather has been nicer the girls have been playing outside each day when I pick them up after school. Presley absolutely LOVES being outside and seriously throws a fit when I tell her it's time to go. She arches her back and starts crying. It's pitiful. It's like she is seriously never let outside except when with grandma. So, I am usually struggling to get her in her seat and buckled up. She will usually start asking for her "binky" but she isn't allowed to have them in the car anymore since we are slowly getting rid of them. The only time she has them is during naps or at night. My refusal to give her the binky doesn't really help. The good news is that she is usually over her sadness by the time we get a block or two away. I'm hoping she will outgrow this????

After school Chad came home and mowed the lawn. It didn't really need it yet, but it's supposed to rain for the next 3 or so days so he decided to just do it tonight. Anyways, after he mowed he turned the sprinklers on to make sure they were all working. He took Presley out to look at them with him and when she came in, she came running up to me and said, "Mommy sprinkles on." So cute. She calls the sprinklers - sprinkles.

We tried out our new grill tonight. We had a great dinner of rainbow trout and shrimp on the grill and then rice and peas. It was all so great! Presley had her own meal of pizza. She did try a little of the rice, but that was it. She's still a pretty picky eater. After dinner were baths and then bedtime. Chad and I had ice cream and cookies for dessert after they were in bed. We also got to watch a new show that we had TiVo'd last night. It's really funny. You should check it out. It's on Monday's at 10,I think. Really funny.

chillin' in the trailer

Saturday afternoon Presley took a 4 hour nap!! Yeah for us, but since she slept so long she missed out on our bike ride we were planning on taking. Daddy decided to take Addison anyways while we were waiting for Presley to get up. Addison was so relaxed. She just loved it. Every time Chad would ride by I would see her just looking out her little window watching the scenery. I guess it was a good thing that Presley was sleeping because when she got up we showed her the trailer and Chad tried to put her in, and she wanted nothing to do with it. I think she needs to get used to things a little before being excited about them. The first time Chad got the tractor out this spring she was terrified of it even though she loved it last year. Now she is ok with it again. I think it just takes time. I'm sure she'll love the trailer next time. Saturday night we ran errands, got groceries and picked up this new grill that Chad and I had fun putting together until 11 Saturday night when we could've had free assembly... ??? What were we thinking? We weren't necessarily looking to get a new grill, but when Chad was cleaning out the grill this spring he accidentally broke the burner (actually it pretty much fell apart) so we had to get a new burner at least, and you know Chad.... if that's the case you might as well get a whole new grill. :) Sunday morning we were in the nursery at church. Presley let me put her hair in pigtails and left them alone! She's not so much into me doing her hair these days so I was happy. Chad and I realized that this was our last time in the nursery with her at church. She will move up to the next class when she turns two. We serve in the nursery on the 4th Sunday of the month, so our next time serving she will already be in the next class. :( This picture was taken before church when most of her hair was still up in the pigtails. :)

Both girls took good naps on Sunday afternoon too, so Chad and I were able to powerwash the house and start on trimming the bushes. It was so sunny out that we both got a little sunburn on our arms. Sunday night we dropped the girls off with grandma and grandpa to play so we could go get some prices on playsets. We are planning on doing a playset for both of the girls' birthdays this year. We have them narrowed down between this one and this one, we think. Hopefully we will decide this week and get it ordered soon so we can hopefully have it put up before Presley's birthday. After we got our quotes and ran a couple of errands we stopped by and picked up our favorite pizza to eat for dinner.

Chad picked up his contacts today. He had to wear them 4 hours today and go up to 5 hours tomorrow. His appointment was at 3:45 and I don't think he got home until close to 6. He said he did pretty good with getting them in and out, but after he got them in the Dr. wanted to look to see how they were working. He has to go back in a week to see about getting a different pair of contacts. I'm not exactly sure why, but I think the Dr. thought he could get Chad seeing even better than he is now. I think he was looking to see how the contact would smooth out his bulge on the cornea. So, he may be getting a new pair soon. We had to pay $200+ for these (and that's after insurance covered the same amount), so I sure hope they don't charge us any more if they decided to get different contacts next week. He did get to talk to our eye Dr. about Addison. Our eye Dr. pretty much confirmed what Addison's Dr. had said. He encouraged us to have her wear her glasses all the time to give her eye more of a chance to heal itself so it doesn't have to work as hard. So, I think for now that's what we will do. I still am planning on talking to her pediatrician too. She has been doing great with them so far. Leaving them alone for the most part.

I think that's it for now. Oh wait, one more thing. I am for sure doing 4th grade next year. I was debating between going to 3rd or staying in 4th, but decided I might as well stick it out where I am since I have already learned the curriculum. So that's where I am now. I don't have to move rooms which is nice considering I have one of the larger classrooms. I'm not sure what I would do if a kindergarten position would open up later.....

edited to add: I see it won' t let me link the Home Depot playset for some reason. If you type in Glacier Peak in the search at Home Depot, you will see the one we are thinking about. There are different things we like about each of them.

and

Chad's attempt at putting in his contacts this morning didn't go as well as yesterday. He says it's easier if he is sitting down and this morning he was standing in front of the bathroom mirror trying to do it. Maybe we will have to get him a little vanity he can put on the table. :) He was getting pretty frustrated with his left eye. That's the one that is harder for him to get in, but all is well and he got both of them in. He has to leave them in until around noon today...

Look what we picked up

After school I stopped by and picked up Addy and headed over to her eye dr. I was able to meet with her dr. and discuss my concerns. He answered my questions. I was thankful I was able to talk to him without having to schedule another appointment. My main concern was trying to figure out if he thought Addison needed glasses because we were seeing her eye turn in quite frequently (which wasn't/isn't the case at all.) I didn't know if he prescribed glasses just for the eye turn or if there was something else. I knew all babies were far-sighted to some extent. He did let me know that Addison is more-so far-sighted than other babies her age. In fact he said her eyes were 4 times worse than babies this age. He let me know that the glasses are for that also. He told me if I wasn't comfortable with glasses it was fine to wait. He also told me that chances were if I had noticed it before chances were that it would come back again (usually peaking around 18 months). There is a chance that it could go away, but we would have to wait and see. I told him that it has been close to 2 months since we have seen her do it. So, I'm still not entirely sure what we will do. I picked them up just in case since we had already ordered them and paid $15 for them. I am going to put a call in to her pediatrician to ask her advice. We put them on her this afternoon for a bit to see how she reacted to them. She didn't try once and take them off. The only time she even realized they were on was when she was trying to rub her eyes and she couldn't get to them. I didn't really notice her playing any different so I'm not sure if they are helping her or not. The lenses aren't thick at all, but the prescription is pretty strong. I definitely can't see anything out of them. When I first got home and Presley saw them she said, "Presley glasses." I told her that they were Addy's and she seemed ok with it and didn't mention it after that and didn't try to touch them or anything, so hopefully she will be fine with it.
Because they are such a strong prescription they make her eyes look big. I also think they make her like such a big girl now. {I'm not sure I like that. :) }

Finally

Addison is finally (knock on wood) back to sleeping through the night again. She started sleeping through the night when she was around 3 months or so, but something changed. The last 3 or more months she has been getting up at night again. I think when we switched her into her own room that was the beginning of it. After that she has had a couple of colds, time changes, I don't know what else; all I know is she was getting up at least twice (sometimes more) times a night. Needless to say, that meant Mommy wasn't getting good sleep. For the past two night she has slept though until I wake her up in the morning. I'm hoping this will continue. {fingers crossed}

Not Much

going on here. All of us are feeling pretty good. We are staying busy as usual. Chad worked Driver's Ed last night and I went to my euchre group. Aunt Hildy came over to watch the girls. We enjoyed the nice warm weather today and played outside after school while Chad got the lawn mowed. Got a call that Addy's glasses came in, but haven't picked them up yet. (Actually thinking of getting a second opinion before we wear them full-time. I know, a little late, but better late than never. We just want to make sure she really needs glasses and we aren't just over-reacting to the eye thing. I actually haven't seen her eye do that thing in probably close to a month and a half, so we'll see what someone else says. I was nervous the first Dr. was giving us glasses because he thought we were seeing it a lot.) Haven't heard yet about Chad's contacts. Looking forward to a nice weekend. Here are a few pics from today. (I tried to narrow them down, it's so hard to do when I take 40+....)

If you look close at this next picture you can kinda see Addy's two teeth on the bottom. This is the best shot I could get of them after several attempts.

Worse then better & Yellow & Blue

That's what ended up happening with me, well the worse then better part. Not the yellow and blue part thankfully. I didn't end up bruised, but I did end up getting pretty sick. I thought I was getting better on Sunday, but I was wrong. Sunday night was AWFUL. I was up most of the night. So much for me thinking a good night of sleep would help me out. I decided that if I had to get up and go to school to make sub plans I might as well try to stick it out for at least a 1/2 day. I don't know if I made the right decision or not. It took me almost 2 hours to get ready that morning, and not because I actually spent that much time getting ready, but because I kept having to lay down and take breaks. Chad took the girls to Grandma's in their pajamas. I was very thankful that I had a sub coming for me at 11:45. I went home and slept for 3 straight hours and went to bed at 8. I really needed that rest. I woke up this morning feeling better, not 100%, but lots better than yesterday. I was still really weak and sore. Now I am feeling close to 100%. :)


********

Today after school Chad went to Meijer to pick up a new light for Presley's fish tank. They didn't have a clear light like we normally get, so he got a red light. We haven't really ever named her fish. When he was putting the light bulb in, he asked Presley what her fishs' name was, and she matter of factly said, "Yellow." With that red light it did turn the goldfish a yellowish color, so I guess we now have a name, Yellow. AND she's pretty smart to know that red (light) and orange (fish) make yellow, don't you think? :) He then asked her what the other fishs' name was and she said, "Blue." I'm not sure why she said Blue, since he is black, but that's close enough for us... I'm pretty sure the reason she answered with colors when asked what their names were is because we are always asking her questions like: how many? what color? what shape? who's that? what's this? etc... So, when Chad asked her a question, she automatically replied with one of her answers. We decided that they were pretty good names, and they have now stuck. So, we now would like to introduce you to Yellow. Tonight when I was putting her to bed, she walked over to her fish and said, "night Yellow, night Blue," so there you go. Yellow is the busy one!!!! I could hardly get a picture that wasn't blurry because she kept swimming all the time. Never stopped. She's the bigger one, bossier one, and the "top fish" of the tank.


and Blue.

Blue is the shy one. He is usually hanging out at the back of the tank and only comes up front when he (I don't know why we assume he is a he...) anyways he only comes up front when he is fed. Here is a picture to prove who is "top fish."

And one more thing before I go tonight, I wanted to let everyone know that my mother-in-law has attempted to start a blog. Check it out here. I have also added her in my links. She has just started so give her time. I'm hoping we will get more glimpses on what the girls are doing all day when I am at work with stories and pictures, hint, hint, Mom. :) Good night!

Pizza, temperatures, and not much else...

That's our weekend. I ended up with some kind of bug and was sick all weekend. I had a headache, upset stomach, chills, was dizzy, and even a little temp. It never got over 102, so it wasn't awful, just put me in a yucky mood. I'm still not feeling great tonight, but a little better. I am planning on going to work tomorrow, so I hope after a good night of sleep I will feel much better in the morning. I don't have many sick days left to use from my maternity leaves with both Presley and Addison, so basically I have to go to work if I want to get paid. I think I only have maybe 1 more day, so I figure I better go unless I'm SERIOUSLY sick.

Chad helped me out a lot with the girls. He even has made every meal for all of us this weekend. He has been a big help, running our errands while I stayed home all weekend. Saturday night he used a homemade pizza kit and let Presley help him out. She had a blast. She only wanted to watch him while he made the crust and put the sauce on. She jumped right in when he was putting on the cheese. She kept looking at Chad and saying, "cooking Daddy? Presley do it."

It was one handful of cheese on the pizza and then one handful of cheese in the mouth. :)

Wactching the pizza cook....
She was so proud of herself for helping Daddy cook. "Big girl, Daddy?"

I was putting the dishes away and had Addison on the floor when she started crying, so Presley went over without me asking and got down to talk with Addison. She said, "no cry Addy."

Maybe I do my best work when I'm sick, but I was able to get Presley's closet cleaned out today. I got all of the clothes that she has grown out of and most of the winter clothes put away for Addison to use next year. (I did keep SOME warm clothes out, but I'm hoping we won't need them much anymore. Positive thoughts....)

******** Random thoughts -

• Presley is talking so much now. When she says something funny or cute, we smile or laugh and she will look at us with a serious face and say, "no funny, no laugh."
• When she wants one of us to hold her she will say, "I hold you."
• Addy's second tooth is through.

When I pick them up...

This is how I usually find Presley when I go to pick her up from Grandma's (DayCare)...

Beautiful, isn't she? Presley LOVES to dress up. She normally has on a fancy Easter hat as well. Notice the gold sparkly shoes?

She loves all the clothes that she can dress up in all day long. In fact she loves them so much that she doesn't want to take them off, and we normally come home with one of the dresses on. Here she is having a drink of "coffee" (water). She asks for it several times a day. "Coffee Mom?"



They don't leave Addy out either when dressing up...

In other news...

Addison has her first tooth!!! (Actually it poked through on Monday (the day she turned 8 months), but with all the eye appointments and updates, I forgot to mention it.) I have seen two on the bottom right below the surface for awhile now, but I can finally feel one with my finger. It's not very far up yet, but at least I can feel it now. The other one will be coming soon I'm sure. I tried unsuccessfully to get a picture. No luck. I'll keep trying. I've been wondering when she was going to get teeth. Presley had them kind of early, so I was assuming that Addison would too, but I guess she had other plans. Bring on the steak... ok, maybe not yet, but yeah for her. One more step towards big people food.

Let's see what else....oh yeah, one of my students got kicked out for the rest of the year. He's actually going to day treatment at a special place for kids with problems. On Monday he got into trouble with our art teacher in the morning and then at lunch time apparently tried to take a swing at our recess aide. That earned him his 25th behavior slip this year! So, he was suspended out of school for the rest of the week, and his mom has decided to try this treatment place. Hopefully it will work for him. He's got a lot of anger issues and home issues (Dad's in prison). I really like the kid. I have tried to connect with him. We have our good days and our bad, but for the most part he has done ok with me. Well, except for the one time he got mad at me, and picked up a chair and threw it against the wall which then bounced off the wall and hit a student in the neck... Anyways, I hope this will help him.

Speaking of school as of right now I am assigned to teach a 3rd/4th grade split class for next school year. It goes by seniority and I'm pretty low on the scale even though this is my 6th(?) year teaching. I'm pretty sure I won't actually have to teach that split class, but that's what I have now. I did bid on a 3rd grade class in my school, and should know by either the end of this week or next week if I get that. It basically goes by seniority. There should also be a 4th grade position open here at LaSalle too. I haven't decided what I want to do exactly. I just know I didn't want the split class. There is also still a chance that I could end up in kindergarten again. The only problem with that is, they won't open up another kindergarten class until closer to the beginning of school when they see how many kids we have signed up. So it looks like I will either be 3rd or 4th for now and then I'm not sure what I would choose IF they did open up another kindergarten class. The thing that would be nice about staying in 3rd or 4th is I wouldn't have to worry about getting cut again two days before school started because we don't have enough kids like I did this year in kindergarten. You have a pretty good idea at the end of the year how many teachers you will need in that grade for the next year. With kindergarten they are new to school, so you really have NO idea. Does that make sense? So, I'm just weighing my options. I really like the teachers that teach at both the 3rd and 4th grade spots, so it would be great working with any of those ladies. A bonus to staying in 4th is 1.) I have done it already and 2.) I wouldn't have to move rooms. (I'm not sure about that, but I don't think so.) We'll see...

I think that's all I have for now. No calls from either eye Dr.'s yet, so we are still waiting on contacts and glasses. I'm assuming it will be next week sometime.... Have a good one.

Eye Update - Addison

Well, two days at the eye Dr.'s and two not so good reports......

My baby girl has to get glasses! :(

Yeah, can you believe it? An 8th month old (as of yesterday) has to get glasses. I am still in shock, I think.

I took her to her appointment this morning and she did really good. I was so proud of her. She sat on my lap and let the nurses and Dr. shine lights in her eye, cover them up with patches, hold lenses up in front of them and even put drops in to dilate them. That was the worse part, the drops. They said it would make her vision blurry and her eyes sensitive to the light. We had to wait 15 minutes for her eyes to fully dilate, and during that time she kept rubbing her eyes and holding my face. I could tell the drops were bothering her. It was like she could hear me and she knew I was holding her, but she couldn't see me as well, so she had to hold my face to make sure it was still me. I felt so bad for her. She didn't cry at all though (she did better than me, I have cried twice today). She's a trooper. The Dr. asked when I noticed her eye the most and I told him when she was tired and when she was trying to really focus on something. The official diagnosis is Accommodative Esotropia, basically she is pretty farsighted, can't see up-close. The one eye isn't "lazy" as I had said, it is just the weaker of the two and she is trying so hard to focus she is over-compensating and that is why the eye seems to "go in". The glasses should correct her vision. The Dr. said about 50% of people will outgrow this and 50% will not. Both the Dr. and the lady helping us with the glasses made it sound like her eyes were pretty bad. The Dr. held up the lens that she will need, and I couldn't hardly see anything. Her left eye is worse than her right. (same as her Daddy) I'm not sure if she will have to have thick lenses or not. They never really said, but I'm thinking she might. They said it was very hereditary. So one of us has to have this somewhere in our family. I asked if I need to be concerned with Presley and he said not necessarily. We would've noticed something by now. He said he could just check her out the next time I take Addy in for a follow-up. I'm hoping that since we caught this so early the glasses will correct it and she will outgrow it. They did warn us that once she is used to wearing her glasses and we take them off her eye will probably look even worse while not wearing them because her eyes will be used to seeing correctly with the glasses.

They wanted me to pick out glasses this morning right after our appointment but I wanted to do it with Chad. So I had Chad meet me after school back at the Dr.'s to pick some out. They have really cute glasses for kids these days. They look just like ones I would pick out. Unfortunately they don't recommend them for little babies. They suggest getting round frames for the young kids. When the frames are flat across the top, babies tend to look over the glasses instead of through them. So, we did end up finding a cute pair of pink wire glasses (either these ones of ones very similar, I can't exactly remember)that we ordered. They should be here in a week or so. They will wrap around her ears to help keep them on. I'm a little nervous as to how she will do. The Dr. said this is pretty early, so he's not sure how she will do with them. He said if she tries to pull them off and will only keep them on for a couple of minutes at a time we will just wait until she is closer to a year old before trying again. She does a good job when I put sunglasses on her, so maybe she will be ok. When trying them on today she was trying to pull them off, but I think that she saw the little stickers on the lenses and it was bothering her. If she does keep them on, I wonder what Presley will do. I can just hear her saying, "Preckley glasses" and trying to take them off. She doesn't like Addy to have anything that she doesn't have. So, I guess we'll see.

I told Chad our eye insurance is probably not liking us right about now. Two days, two problems, Presley and I are staying away from the eye Dr. for awhile. :) I will leave you with a picture of my sweet Addy. Chances are the next time you see her, she will have cute little round glasses on to go with her cute little round face. (I'll be sure to post pictures when she gets them.) I sure hope the glasses don't cover up those beautiful blue eyes.

Eye Update - Chad

Just wanted to update you all on Chad's eye appointment. Since his last appointment (3 months ago) his left eye has gotten a little worse and it has now started slightly in his right eye. Last time it was only found in his left eye. So... they will fit him with hard contacts that he will wear. They say he will probably have to wear contacts for the rest of his life. They do not recommend surgery at this point. The contacts are to smooth out his cornea. Karatoconus has been described to us as having mountains on the lens (cornea) of the eye. Instead of the cornea being smooth, there are bumps. The contact lenses are supposed to smooth out and push down the bumps (therefore the reason he has to get HARD lenses). This should help with his vision (although he hasn't had any problems with his vision as of yet). He is a little weirded out by having to put something in his eye everyday, but knows he will get used to it. They have warned him that he will be able to feel it on his eye every time he blinks in the beginning. They told him to plan to be at the eye place for about an hour and a half when his contacts come in so he can practice putting them in and taking them out several times. Our eye Dr. said that he has a 90 year old man that is still wearing contacts everyday that has the same thing Chad does. So, this is not to "cure" his eyes, just to help deal with them. He didn't really give us any definitive answers on how or why this happens, just several possibilities. I don't think there are any for sure answers as to why or how. Chad asked if he needed to worry about the girls getting this and the Dr. said not necessarily. He said to just make sure that when the girls start going to an eye Dr. that we tell them that Chad has this so they can watch out for it. So, there we go... in about 10 days Chad will get to try out some new lenses. He wondered if he should get colored lenses..... :)

I Wuv you Daddy!

Presley has recently started saying that she loves us (along with loving her doll, Queenie, Addy, the lights, the snow, pretty much everything she loves now, you get the idea). Here is a quick video during breakfast on Easter with Daddy and her bowl of Cookie Crisp cereal. Daddy was feeding her breakfast (he picked her cereal out) while I was getting Addy ready for church.

Happy Easter!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. We sure did, even if it was cold. We had to change some of our parts of our outfits to adjust to the weather (tights instead of socks, sweaters, etc.) but we had a great day no matter what.

We actually started celebrating last night with my side of the family. It has been a tradition to go out for breakfast with my side of the family on Easter morning for the last several years. It's a little more difficult to do that now considering we have 4 kids under 4. So this year we decided to just do it the night before. So my two sisters and family came over to our house last night for yummy pizza and salad. Presley had a blast running around with cousins Reagan and Reilly. She crashed last night when we put her down she was so worn out.

This morning we had Easter baskets here at home and then went to church. The girls both got lots of books, a couple kid dance cd's, their camo outfits and game. After church we headed over to Chad's parents for lunch with his parents and sister and family. Addison went to bed as soon as we got there and missed out on her Easter basket but Presley was generous to open both hers and Addison's. They both got some pajams for themselves that they badly needed and also some pajamas and slippers for their new Build-a-Bears. We had a yummy lunch of prime rib. Presley enjoyed dancing with cousin Gabi and crashed again tonight. It makes bedtime easier for us when she has fun playing with cousins all day long. :)

When we got home we tried to play the Elefun game, but our batteries were dying so the butterflies wouldn't fly out of the nose. Presley had fun just dumping the butterflies out and then putting them back in the head of the elephant. I think she thought that was the game. She didn't mind at all. I tried to get her to change out of her dress, but she wanted to wear it all day. She wouldn't even let me take her shoes off. She was loving the dress. We forgot to take any family pictures, but here are a few more of the girls today. Enjoy!

Tomorrow we head back to school... It's been nice being home all week. We didn't end up going anywhere, but we sure got lots done. It feels so good. Plus, we spent lots of time playing with the girls which was better than going anywhere. They are both getting to be so much fun. I love the age both of them are at.

We counted today and after tomorrow we only have 7 more Mondays until SUMMER break!!! I keep telling myself I can do this, I can do this. :) Have a great week!

p.s. If you think about it please keep Chad in your prayers. Tomorrow we go back to the eye doctor to see if there is any change in his eye. Last time we went he was diagnosed with an eye disease. Tomorrow is to see if there is any change and where we go from here.

AND
Addison goes to the eye doctor on Tuesday to see if there is anything we need to do for her occasional lazy eye. (When I made this appointment she did it about once every couple of days, and since I have made the appointment I haven't seen it at all, but figure we should still just check it out to make sure.)

"egg"stra fun

Tonight after dinner we got the girls in their pj's and decorated some Easter eggs. Presley loved it. She kept wanting to dip her fingers into the colored cups (which she did several times). Chad was taking a video of us decorating the eggs and he was asking her what color the eggs were and she kept getting them wrong. It was so funny because she knows her colors really good now, and her favorites are green and yellow and those are the two she got consistently wrong when he had the video camera on. As soon as he would stop recording she would get it right. Silly.

We bought a glitter egg kit, but the glitter didn't work very well, so we ended up only doing 4 of the eggs with glitter. More pictures here.

I got the hall closet cleaned out today and more of the laundry finished. The only thing left on my to-do list for spring break is Presley's closet. I may end up waiting to do that until a weekend so I can just relax these last two days of our break. Plus, it doesn't really make much sense to pack away her warm clothes just yet... sigh. I'm wondering how an Easter egg hunt is going to go over with snow??? I sure hope that isn't going to be the case.

The flowers are still blooming

...inside at least. I picked these up today from Target for $1.o0! Aren't they cute?

Here Presley is giving Addy a kiss.Well, I got lots more done today. Chad and I went through his side of the closet and filled up a garbage bag full of his clothes. Tonight we both went through each of our dressers and were able to fill up two more bags. Plus we had a bag to trash. When I was going through my summer clothes I got rid of every single pair of shorts. I didn't find one pair that I liked well enough to keep. I'm not a big fan of shorts on me anyways, but I was surprised that I didn't keep one. I usually opt for capris, but still. I got rid of lots of capris and tank tops too. I really need summer clothes. Someone is going to get lucky with all the good finds. :)

We got lots more done on the organization of the office/playroom today. Most of the toys are now set up and organized. We got the house vacuumed and a couple of loads of laundry done. We got a new toy box for upstairs so we brought the old one down in the basement. I think there must be something wrong if we have 4 toy boxes and only 2 kids??? Plus, the 2 kids aren't even 2 years old yet. Scary. Something must change! :) (FYI - none of the toy boxes are completely filled, but still....)

I still want to go through Presley's closet and take the clothes that are to small for her now and put them away until they fit Addy. I also still need to clean out our hall closet. I guess I still have 3 more days of our break to get it finished. I hope it doesn't take to long because I want to relax some (if that's possible.) :)