Girl Named Traditionly

I'm pretty sure "traditionly" isn't a word, but I don't know the adjective form of tradition I suppose. The weekend was all about Christmas traditions for us. Saturday Kylie and I went shopping with my mom to finish our Christmas shopping, and we had so much fun! Kylie was so cute because Dad had given her $1, and I gave her $1 to pick out anything she wanted. Being 3 1/2, she doesn't really understand how it works, and at Kohl's she picked out a $5 stuffed animal she wanted and gave the cashier $1 and said she was saving the other dollar for a toy at Walmart. At least she's learning that you have to have money to buy things. She then picked out a $10 toy to buy with her remaining $1. Pete has some serious accounting work to do with her! 

Then Saturday evening we headed down to Silver Dollar City for our annual trip to see the lights. Us and 25,000 other people had the same idea. They ran out of parking spots, so being Rhiannon and Pete, we made up our own. We saw a chain down around where the tram drives. We drove over it and parked in the tram turn-around. Then it took approximately 30 minutes to wait in line to get into the park, then it was shoulder-to-shoulder once we got in. We stayed for a total of 45 minutes before joining the herd of people leaving when the parade ended. We had a good time, and the girls were good while we were there. As you can see in the picture, by the time we left Claire was a little done being there. 

Then Sunday we had our Christmas with the Zoromski's. Kylie got an apron with her name on it, which she was SO excited about. She said she wants to wear it forever (she's going to be even more excited when she sees the kitchen we got her to go along with it!) 

And, we actually got all 3 kids to sit down at one time long enough to take multiple pictures of them!

I can't wait for this weekend, and to have a week off to spend with them! This is the first year that Kylie's been old enough to understand Christmas and really get excited. It makes it so much better to see it through their eyes and get excited with them! Kylie loves to listen to and sing Christmas music, and knows the words to every song! She tells everyone she sees "Merry Christmas" and it's so sweet, it warms your heart.


On another note, Kylie has a urinary tract infection that I'm pretty sure she's had for a couple weeks, and I'm a bad mom and didn't take her to the doctor because I thought she was making it up. I've learned my lesson. She started her medicine today, so hopefully it will start working quickly. We have to take her in Wednesday for an ultrasound, but hopefully it comes back normal. 


Claire had her 18 month check up today and was fine. She's 60th percentile for height and 35th percentile for weight (even after having a belly full of pancakes and eggs!) she had two shots, but so far no reaction this time.

Girl Named Holiday Popcorn

Peppermint Marshmallow Popcorn

3 bags microwave popcorn, hulls removed
2 sticks butter
1 cup brown sugar
16 oz bag of marshmallows (any flavor, I used peppermint for Christmas)

Pop the popcorn, put in bowl. Microwave butter, brown sugar and marshmallows for 2 1/2 minutes, stir, then 1 more minute. When it thins out, pour over popcorn, mix, and enjoy!

Girl Named Behind Schedule

Last week was an exhausting week! Claire started off the week throwing up on Monday. Then Tuesday everyone was fine. Tuesday night Becca's kids started throwing up so we had to keep the girls home Wednesday and Thursday. Then I got sick and laid in bed and slept all day Friday. My mom came and got the girls Friday morning and they kept them until Sunday morning. I didn't get any Christmas shopping done this weekend, or cleaning. Sunday everyone was fine, so we were looking forward to starting a normal week. Sunday night, Becca started throwing up so we had to keep the girls home again on today. HOPEFULLY everyone is better and tomorrow I can actually work a full day! This is what my living room looks like after a day at home with the kids...

Kylie decided last night to have a complete meltdown (I know that may completely surprise many of you! ;) ) and not eat her food at dinner. We were having cream cheese chicken croissants and potatoes au gratin, nothing that should be gross to a toddler. Well, we had a standoff similar to the peach incident of 2011. She wouldn't even take a bite, dad and I both argued with her, tried to reason with her, bribe her, anything we could do to get her to eat. Finally, after peeing her pants all over the living room, she took a screaming bath, and went to bed screaming at 6:30. Don't worry, we saved her potatoes for her to eat today, and she again, wouldn't take a bite at lunch. She must have eventually gotten hungry because she ate them, but they must have been the most disgusting old, hard, cold potatoes by that point. On the other hand, tonight at dinner she ate all of her ham and mashed sweet potatoes, so who knows what will please that kid. But, when going to bed tonight she got up every 15 minutes and came out with a different excuse ranging from "it's too cold" to "it's too hot" to "I just need a little bite of chocolate" to "I just have a show I want to watch". I continue thinking I am a horrible mom 90% of the time because I don't know how other moms do it. I only have 2 kids, but they absolutely wear me out! I am exhausted every night, and I get so short-tempered with them because they won't do anything I tell them to do. I'm sure every mom deals with the same stuff, I just think they do it with more grace than I can muster. But then they do things like this and I can't imagine my life without them.

Last night I did have time to go through the 10 trash bags full of clothes that Claire has outgrown in her 18 months of life. It was a ridiculous amount of clothes, and it took me 3 hours to sort, take pictures and get posted on Craigslist to sell. And, I may have cried a good portion of that time, every time I pulled out a miniature pair of pajamas or onesie that the girls wore, it seems like not very long ago. It was Pete's idea, because he got the wood floors put down in the basement this weekend (big step!) so we had to get rid of everything we can to get carpet put down and furniture moved in. We literally have a whole room of baby paraphernalia. It's much harder on the mom than on the dad I think, it reminds me of how small they used to be and how big they are now, and how I will never have another tiny baby of my own. It's very emotional!

Well, on to another day that will hopefully be "normal", and maybe I can get my Christmas shopping all done on Saturday? A girl can dream...