Paris, here she comes

It will be interesting to see if Grace turns out to be in the fashion business. She loves to change clothes, many, many times a day. The other day I couldn't help but take a picture of this outfit she chose. She has dress socks, pink leggings, pink/brown leopard print skirt, red christmas shirt, and her Easter gloves! I love that she is independent enough to dress herself! Her choices make me laugh. I can't wait to show her these pictures when she's 18.

She's still sick!

She started Sunday night. Today is Thursday. I thought we would be able to make it to school today. We missed Tuesday b/c she threw up about 10 minutes before we were going to leave. She didn't throw up yesterday but still have an upset tummy. I thought she could make it today b/c she ate a good dinner last night and seemed to be perking up. Well, as we were pulling into the parking lot at preschool she threw up an entire cup of apple juice, which does not smell too good after being in the tummy for a while. I guess it's a good thing she did it in the car and not in the preschool classroom. This is a picture of our poor Lyla Belle. Yesterday she wouldn't let me go anywhere in the house without carrying her with me. She didn't want to lay on the couch alone. When I was trying to fix dinner I sat her on top of the island in our kitchen. She layed there the whole time. When I would take her anywhere and put her down she just layed down right where I sat her. I went to Verizon yesterday b/c my phone won't charge anymore. She layed on the floor the whole time. Poor thing. I have to secretly confess that it's been kind of nice to have her so still for a few days. It's also been nice to be able to sit and hold her. She never sits still!

Please, no more puking!

I should have taken a picture of Lyla today. I thought about it and could picture the post in my mind. Lyla, our wild child, completely still and pitiful looking, in bed, almost all day. Bless her heart. She started throwing up last night at about 8pm. Grace freaked out, of course. Grace is a worrier. Lyla AND Grace had the stomach bug at the first of the year (in the same night). Ever since then Grace has been worrying about "puking up", as they call it, on a daily basis. She asks me constantly if it is ok for her to throw up. Anyway, when Lyla threw up, Grace freaked out, running around, covering her ears and telling me to let her know when Lyla was done. Poor little Lyla threw up a few time throughout the night. She woke up at 8am this morning and stayed in my bed until 10:30am watching cartoons! She got sick again around 11am and then wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I gave her saltines and jello instead. Then it was like a miracle. She seemed to have made a quick recovery. She played and rode her tricycle around the house for an hour or so. The only reason there is a bike in the house is b/c Grace was bored to tears today without Lyla to play with her. She couldn't stand it. She was very mad that Reesi couldn't come over and there was no one to play with. Then, right about the time Lyla threw up again, Grace declared she wanted to go outside to ride her bike. Well, I can't let her out by herself yet, so I did what I had to do to keep her occupied...I brought her big bike in our house! Our house is not big and does not have wide open space for riding, but you can go in a circle through the living room, dining room, kitchen, foyer area. So when Lyla got up for a little while she wanted her bike in too. I needed them to be happy so I let them. I tried to explain that they needed to go in the same direction but they disagreed and kept getting in each other's way. After Lyla played for a while she started feeling bad again and went back to my bed for cartoons. Grace came in to see what was going on. I always cross my fingers when she comes in my room and I know she's looking for something to do. All of my painting supplies are in my bedroom and I don't like letting them paint with my supplies. Just as I suspected, Grace decided she needed to paint. I gave in to that too even though I didn't want to. I know it's great to let them paint but I just hate it as the one who has to clean it up and pray they don't sling it all over the walls or pour it out on the floor. I've tried buying them washable finger paints or water colors but they only want to use MY paints! Anyway, after painting, which Lyla found the energy to do as well, we had to run an errand. I thought Lyla would be ok but as soon as we got in the car she started crying about her belly. I ended up taking her to the doctor just to make sure it wasn't the flu or strep b/c it is going around so bad here. I needed to know if she had something she would be over in the morning or if it was something I definitely needed to miss preschool over. They decided she just has a stomach bug and to keep away dairy products for a while. I guess we'll go to preschool tomorrow. I hope she doesn't have a belly ache at preschool. If I wasn't a teacher I'd keep her home. But I missed a day last week so I feel like I need to go tomorrow. I just hope Grace gets it before we leave for preschool if she's going to!

From one extreme to another

This is our Grace. She has a very big imagination. She has had imaginary friends since she could talk. Her first imaginary friend was "Amazing Kim" and even today she is always coming up with some senario where her "4 brothers" are doing something with her. (She insists she needs a big brother, not a little brother, a BIG brother.) Anyway, last week for Valentine's Day she wore her Easter hat, white Easter gloves and a very spring-like Easter dress all day long. She got many comments at preschool that day regarding her hat and gloves! I do love it that she doesn't care what other people think about what she wears yet. She is truely dressing for herself right now. She loves being dressy. At about 2 years old she decided that she wanted to wear only dresses and skirts. Today she is a little more willing to wear pants but not that much. She goes from one extreme to the other though. At one time she's dressed up in gloves and a hat but she is also ready to go when there is mud to squish in, a ball to hit, or rain to play in! But the real reason I wanted to write this post was due to the first picture I included. Her pink glasses! On Saturday she decided that she couldn't see well and her eyes were blurry. Well, her "brothers" wouldn't share their contacts with her so she needed glasses. I was going to the grocery store that day so she made me promise to buy her some "real" glasses. They couldn't be sunglasses or play glasses. Luckily, I found these great reading glasses in the dollar bins at JoAnn's, a fabric store I was at. I bought a few of them and popped the lenses out. She wore them all day Saturday and she even wore them to church on Sunday. Tonight she told me she is going to wear them to preschool tomorrow. I think it's great that she has such an active imagination and that she is free to express herself without worrying about others. I'll be very sad when the day comes that she realizes she wants to please everyone else and not just herself.

Why???

Are all kids like this? Or is it just mine? They were playing just fine (for a few minutes anyway) so I decided to try to check my email. Before I knew what she was doing, Lyla jumps up there, crosses her legs like a proper lady should and asks, "Whachya doin' mommy"? She acts like it's as normal as can be to be completely naked anywhere or at anytime! I just don't get it. A few weeks ago I heard the front door open so I immediately dart to the door. I find Lyla completely naked walking in circles around our tree in the front yard. Did I mention it was 32 degrees outside? For those of you that have not been to our new house, it is in a very large subdivision where we are really close to our neighbors and to the road! It's not just Lyla though. Grace is just as bad. We finally had to institute a naked rule in our house...you have to at least wear your panties! I sure hope they grow out of this stage by the time they're teenagers!!!

Mud! Mud! Mud!

As prissy as Grace is, she is equally as ready to get down and dirty! If we would have had more time in the backyard they would have been down to their panties rolling in the mud!

We may have a ballplayer!

Today the weather was nice so Eric had the girls in the backyard. Of course, one of Eric's favorite things to do with the girls is play games. They actually like it too! They are both pretty good at hitting a ball with a bat, at least that is what we think. Now, we've never had them on any sort of softball/t-ball team, so, we don't really know what the competition is like at this age. But, just the fact that they can swing the bat somewhat correctly and actually hit it several times impresses us! Grace almost hit the ball over our fence today. I tried to capture a hit with the camera but I just couldn't do it. Now, Lyla can hit the ball too, but today she just wanted to swing.