Swimming

Ok, here you are Jean...sorry for the lack of pictures! Here is out little mermaid swimming in Poppi and Nonni's pool. She loves swimming and I think she does a great job.

Mission: Get to Daddy

I see him

So Close

Made it!

Just chillin on the steps with Mama

Jumping in from the steps

Slammed

So I always do this to myself..the first two weeks of summer break and I try to pack in all this stuff. I do have pictures but they are still on the camera. But there were a few things I had to share that Lydia has been saying/doing...

In the car yesterday coming home from Sam's Club "look, look, it is an octagon! look mommy". Now I fully expected to see a stop sign and thinking she just knew that stop signs were octagons from Noggin, not knowing an octagon is a shape with 8 sides..but I will be damned when I looked to see what she was pointing to, it was a octagon window on what used to be Laundromat!

When we have been trying to get her to do something she does not want to do she will say "nah..tomorrow" on the same token this morning she blew me away when she said, "play at Nonni's house at the pool. play at Nonni's house yesterday" and that is exactly what we did yesterday..where does she learn how to use these words!

We are at 100% for going number 2 in the potty. Not so well on the number 1 side. Of course my daughter has to be backwards. She will do ok when she is bare bottomed but you put panties or God forbid a pull up on and she will pee in them and not care one bit!

Speaking of bathroom habits, yesterday I was having Lydia wash her hands after a potty attempted and she sang her alphabet. The whole thing. Mark has been teaching her to do that while washing to get her to scrub long enough.

This is such a fun age!

8 Things

Stealing Neurotic Atty's idea...


8 Things I Look Forward To:

1. Summer with Lydia
2. No more diapers with Lydia
3. Staying in my pj's and drinking coffee until 9am or 9pm if I choose
4. My trip to Canada this weekend
5. Leaving a day earlier than planned and seeing The Falls (thanks Deanna)
6. Family Movie Nights
7. My parents pool
8. Fires on the porch with my hubby which usually include smores

8 Things I Did Yesterday:
1. Called my bank in a panic over missing money (it was an auto bill pay)
2. Called my credit cards and cancelled them
3. Called Kennywood a second time asking them to please check again for my wallet
4. Bugged Wendy 100 times with texts about my wallet
5. Went to the end of the year luncheon with the county counselors
6. Gave a tour and had dinner with a new member of our League who is a transfer from the DC League
7. Watched Igor with my family for Hatten Family Movie Night.
8. Got a call from Kennywood saying my wallet had been found and was in the mail

8 Thing I Wish I Could Do:
1. Exercise more.
2. Lose 30 pounds
3. Get Lydia to pee on the potty
4. Go to the Dairy Queen..hmm see number 2
5. Use my cell phone in Canada without the $3.00 a day and .99 a minute charges
6. Receive texts in Canada
7. Clean my house like it should be
8. Hang things in my plaster walls

8 Shows I Watched Lately:
1. Penguins Hockey
2. Dora the Explorer
3. Go Diego Go
4. Ni-Hao Kai-Lan
5. Max and Ruby
6. Oprah
7. The Backyardigans
8. Wonder Pets

Emotions of a Two Year Old

Dancing

Happy

Rest



Scary

Screaming

Surprised

Tired

These were all taken within two minutes...welcome to my world. We are off to Kennywood today. Everyone have a good weekend.

Explanation

Ok now that I have calmed down enough not to type threats to the Federal Government on the Internet, I will explain what is going on.
I was elected to go to a Junior League Conference on June 12th in Canada. I has asked the ladies running the conference about passports b/c I thought I remember something about the law changing but was told no, we would not need one if we were not flying. We were planning on driving so I thought we were golden.
Well it keep bugging me so I did my own research and found that I initial gut instinct was right and we will need one starting June 1st. But I found that you had an option of getting a Passport Card that is only $20 instead of $75. It would only allow land or sea travel in Mexico, Canada, Jamaica and Caribbean but that was fine with me. So I went to the local Post Office to apply. They old me that even though online wait time said less that six weeks, we were still required to pay a "expedite" fee of $96. That was much more than I was expecting to pay. So we talked to the Junior League Board and they agreed to pay the expedite fee for us. So off I go for the second time and this time I fill out the paper work, get my picture taken pay for all the fees and I think I am ready to go. This is May 21st.
I wait the 7 days and check the status of my card online. It say I have routine service..uh, I have a $96 receipt that says differently. So the only way to contact them is to email them, which I promptly did. Two working days later (Monday) I get an email saying the exact same information as before but include a phone number. So I call. This person tell me that the Post Office was wrong and that you cannot expedite a passport card only a passport book. So now my only option is getting a passport by giving them $75 over the phone. So again I call my traveling buddy and tell her what is up. We agree to pay the money since the League already forked almost $200 in fees to make sure we could go.
So when I make my third phone call, I ask if there is anyway to cancel my card application and just process the book and I was told no. I begged but was told no. I called Deanna and told her the bad news, we would have to have both.
So now fast forward to Wednesday morning. Deanna calls me to tell me that she actually received a phone call from someone saying her application had been kicked out due to the expedite fee being on a passport card application. (note, she applied an a separate post office so I cannot completely blame mine) This man told her he COULD cancel her card application and only made her pay $55 the difference in price from the card to the book. He also told her you cannot have both the card and book. So of course I called the number back and told them the story. They claim they have no idea how "Nathan" did that for her. There is NO WAY to cancel the application for the card. She would put a note in my file for "the agency" to call me.
I wait 24 hours and still no call. So I call AGAIN. I told that person the whole story and again was told, there is no way to stop the card application and give me a refund and he told me to call the Post Office!
I know I am only talking about $20 here but it the principle of the thing now. The only good news was that my file showed my passport had been mailed yesterday so I am going to get to go on the trip.

Passports

If you should EVER think you might EVER possibly need your passport JUST GET IT NOW. I cannot even put into words the level of anger and frustration I am feeling right now. AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGG

Mother Daughter Tea

My mom's Ladies group from her church held a Mother Daughter Tea this year. Lydia and I made the trek to Mannington in hopes of some good company and yummy eats!
Here is my mom, Lydia and myself. It might be our first "generational" photo. I know, I know that Lydia is like a carbon copy of her daddy just like I was a carbon copy of my daddy. (Someone told me it was good luck if daughters looked like their dad's..was that you Whitney?) Anyway, if you look really close, you will see that Lydia, Mom and I all have the same mouth/chin combo and have the same smile. Nonni even hopped on the black/white bandwagon!


Here is Whitney and her Daughter Annabelle. Here they are from 9 months ago.

Somehow this is the only picture of Sylvia I got. Sylvia was my Grandfathers girlfriend for several years before he passed away. She was my school cook and made the most yummy rolls. (For those of you keeping count, when I was in high school, my dad was my principal, my uncle was my counselor and my "grandma" was my cook, can we say I was one of TWO seniors there on senior skip day) She was a family friend before her and Pap got got together and of course has stayed in our family since his passing. I was so glad to see her there but could kick myself that I did not get a better picture of her and Lydia...

I do not know what is up with Lydia and I eyes on this one..Mark says my right eyelid does funky stuff when I am tired and stressed. Looks like Lydia's left is going to have the same problem.

We were trying to get a picture again but Lydia wanted to dance.

Enjoying some cookies. This place has a spread. It was so yummy.

We are still battling sleep here at the Hatten house. This has been going on for about 6 weeks. We have tried cry it out, we have tried rocking her again and even reverted back to co-sleeping to get some kind of rest. We have tried giving up the nap, taking longer naps. We have tried running her to death. We have tried giving her a snack. We have tried bargaining.( I will leave the door open if you stay in bed etc) Last night I had a pillow in front of her door with my Zune to drown out her screaming and pounding on the door just to keep her in her room. This after the child only slept 3 hours the night before. Lord help us.

Getting Ready

So before Lydia and I got a shower I took off the old nail polish off of her toes. She was very upset and I got out the nail polish to show her that I would be painting them again. Well she got tired of waiting for me and painted her toes herself.

She really did not do such a bad job. The puddles I believe came from when she as unscrewing the lid. Then she only painted her toe nails/whole toes. I was expecting much worse. I actually let her paint my nails last night. I even wore my manicure to work today and no one has even noticed how one finger has paint all over it and one has one little stroke. I just thought it would be a little reminder that in 6 days I will be home with her all summer long!

We are finally dressed and ready and Lydia was a little confused on who our last minute shoe shopping trip was for...She threw a fit when I told her she could not wear those to church. She walks around in them all the time and does fine. This girl has excellent balance.

She was hanging out in her old bassinet..not that she would EVER sleep in that when she was younger.