Lydia's Second Year

quick update

2011-04-11T09:13:00.002-04:00

Marks birthday

matching dresses for Lydia and Ella from one of my schools

a diaper cake from my book club

a kiss from big sister

Nursemaid

2011-02-10T18:40:00.002-05:00

Lydia had a little reaction from her shots this time. She was running a little fever and her leg was hurting. She laid down on the couch and her "little" buddy came by her comfort her. He was so cute because he never slept..just stayed beside her as she slept.

and yes he is HUGE. He is 10 pounds already and only about 8 months old. Thankfully, he is a gentle giant and came from a family that had two girls were played with kittens since there were born.

Lydia 3'4" for those of you trying to figure out how long he is.

He has came a long way huh?

Christmas Eve

2011-01-21T13:10:00.004-05:00

We did family presents on Christmas Eve this year at my parents house.

I cannot even count how many times we have watched these Scooby Doo movies..luckily they are not too annoying. They are newer ones but still have all the "right" voices.

This was Christmas Even morning and we were trying out the new camera I got Mark.

More Christmas Spirit

2010-12-07T12:46:00.002-05:00

Here another outtake..this one is the best of these poses..again Mark was talking in them..Zack did such a great job and he just took them at his Mama's house.

Here is Lydia being a cutie. Here is her super cheese smile. This is the only picture where you can see her matching sparkle headband and shoes.

and of course more with the reindeer.

More Sneak Peaks

2010-12-04T06:51:00.003-05:00

Here was more pictures of our Christmas/Family/Lydia' 4 year old photo shoot..can you tell how much we like taking photos??? Mark actually does love taking candid photos of Lydia but under pressure, Lydia does not do so great and put her and Mark in a photo together ugh!

So I am lovin this new store in the Meadowbrook Mall called Crazy 8's. Lydia picked out this outfit on her own. She told me from the beginning that she wanted to wear a red sweater for her photos. I had just asked her what color sweater to kinda prompt her. And of course in true Lydia luck..she found a red sweater DRESS. She still asks every morning if she can wear a dress and tights with no holes (she hates leggings??? don't ask, I have NO idea why)

I cannot complain though, I wanted a girly girl to dress up and I got one. Now if she would grow some hair for me to play around with all will be right with the world.

Isn't this the sweetest picture? This dress is her annual gift from her Aunt Mary Gay and Uncle Frankie..but the awesome headband is from Crazy 8's again.

She is totally into watching Christmas movies. After years of watching Mickey Christmas she has moved on to Frosty Winter Wonderland (were Frosty gets married) and a Scooby Doo DVD where there is three or four Christmas episodes on it.

Here are a few of the family outtakes..not the really funny ones..I am saving that for whole separate post. I like this one because it show all "four" of us. We have been slacking on the whole belly shot thing so it was nice to have one..too bad Mark is talking in it..He has a horrible habit of doing that..he thinks he is being sly and talking to Lydia out of the side of his mouth but you just goofy pictures.Plus Lydia is using my boobs as a chair but I still like it.

Can I say that Lydia picked out our outfits. She and I went shopping and I had two other sweaters picked out for Mark but she begged me to buy this one. Mark was very hesitant about the color and pouted for days when I showed it to him but I though it looked awesome on him. Then I wanted a different color sweater for myself but she kept telling me this one was beautiful so I went her gut. Honestly, she has never steered me wrong yet. She also helped with pants. Motherhood finally started carrying petite pants so I picked up a few pair. I have pants but I get tired of looking sloppy and having them drag the floor!Hi Hatten twins...who is that weird outcast sitting with the two of you...sigh..maybe I have some hope with number two.
I know there are little things I can do that make her look a little more like me...like when I put her hair in pigtails or when she is giving dirty or evil looks at people..but seriously folks..my chin and lips gets lots in all that Hatten.

Sneek Peek

2010-11-29T18:39:00.002-05:00

Photo by Zach Gouzd other wise known as the the patron saint of patient photographers

10 on Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T07:00:00.002-05:00

1. I am thankful for Lydia. I never understood the love between a child and mother until her. I did not think there could be a more powerful connection than the one between yourself and your spouse. I could not have been more wrong.

2. I am thankful for how much Lydia is a daddy's girl. I am a daddy's girl and I am so happy that my daughter has such close relationship with her daddy!

3. I am thankful that Lydia not only looks exactly like her daddy she acts like her daddy too. She is creative, musical, loving, tenderhearted, and funny. She also gets her love of outdoors from him (not me).

4. I am thankful that some of me did sneak in there..I love that she loves to snuggle with me on the couch and watch TV. I don't care if we are rotting our brains.

5. I am thankful that, although frustrating at times, she is very verbal and strongminded. She is NOT easily swayed into doing something she does not want to do. My dream is that will turn her into a good leader at school and in life..not a follower.

6. I am thankful that she loves preschool and that she is doing great there. (or at least not bad enough that they ever call home..only one phone call and thankfully she was upset at the teacher not the kids)

7. I am thankful that Lydia seems to bring out the best in folks. I have seen family members do complete 180 degree personality changes since she has been in our lives. Especially with the men who have done diaper changes on her, played dress up, got makeovers..it is amazing.

8. I am thankful for everyone who has helped us with her. It really takes a village folks..

9. I am thankful that Lydia is excited to be a big sister. She already talks, sings, kisses, gives it a bath and puts lotion on it, hugs it goodbye when she is leaving and has already named the baby. She has done all this with absolutely no prompting from us. I know that this love seems to be one sided with her really wanting a baby sister named Ella...but I think things will be ok either way.

10. I am thankful that Lydia tests me everyday on being able to control my emotions by coming home singing "Frosty the Snowbutt" then when I don't laugh she follows that up with " You get it mom? you get it? Snowbutt? you get it?" Like I am just the idiot with no sense of humor, not a mom is who showing displeasure about her daughter singing about butts. Seriously folks..I don't know where she comes up with this stuff!

The Gang..

2010-11-10T20:30:00.002-05:00

Here is the gang...Daphine, Shaggy and Scooby.

Trick or Treating Mike and Donna

Great Aunt DJ and Great Uncle Mike

and Vickie and Jack's house

Preschool Halloween Party

2010-11-06T19:43:00.002-04:00

Here is our Scooby psyched up to go to her party at preschool. Still pretty happy to be there...

and this is the face that our princess gave us when the whole party did not stop and stare at her during her entrance...

She is absolutely too funny.

Smallest Church in the 48 states

2010-10-28T11:55:00.002-04:00

We stopped here on our way to Davis on our Leaf Peepers weekend back in September.

Picnic at Morris Park

2010-09-28T09:32:00.002-04:00

So Lydia has been on the hunt for some binoculars since she saw someone using them at the Pirates game. Of course her Great Uncle Mike A (she has two Great Uncle Mikes) had a "extra" pair laying around that she gave her. So then we HAD to go to the forest and look for wild animals. So I picked some supplies and we had a picnic at Morris Park so Lydia could try out her new binoculars.

When we first left she said she wanted to find ghosts and bats. I did not know that ghosts were wild animals but whatever. She did find some "wild" dogs that she got pet after spotting them. And she did actually see a bat when dusk was setting in..I was off getting the car so I missed that little touch with nature.
Here is another picture from the funny pictures of Mark file.

Here is Lydia eating her picnic dinner. I actually picked up one of those roasted chickens from Walmart and it was really good!

Wordless Wednesday

2010-09-22T08:07:00.000-04:00

Italian Festival

2010-09-21T09:32:00.005-04:00

This year my birthday fell on the Sunday of the Italian Festival. So I got to celebrate with outdoor mass and yummy food. After the festival we went down with my parents to the Winery in Weston. It was such a pretty day we decided to take some pictures...here are the outtakes..meet Forrest Gump and his daughter Forrest Gump Junior. Now I am not saying that I am miss photogenic but Mark has to be one the hardest person to take a picture of..maybe I will do a whole post of outtakes one day! and yes, although not in these photos his eyes are usually closed.

Here she is showing off her Italian Princess shirt and her crazy hat she talked Nonni into buying for her and her Pooh stamp on her face that she also talked Nonni into getting for her...

Here was was dancing around playing with the shadows.

This was her special "kingdom" with all her animal friends...too much Disney Princess maybe??

Daddy was allowed in and the only way we could leave is if we loaded up all her animal friends with us.

It was a pretty fun day. Everyday is a new adventure with her. Her imagination is so wild and active right now.

Church Picnic

2010-09-20T09:43:00.003-04:00

Our church had their annual church picnic this year on Labor Day. This was Lydia waiting her turn to take a whack at the pinata. She is super thrilled can't you tell??
Here again, trying to wait but she could not have been any less interested. And when it was her turn she barely made it move. She did put a little pep in her step when the candy burst out but really only ate one piece of that.

Bubbles was where it was at.

Again, just hanging out by herself blowing bubbles.

It is crazy to think about how last year she could not blow bubbles...

I cannot wait to watch her at preschool and see if she actually plays with kids. I will say this weekend at my Pampered Chef show, She and another little girl dressed up and sang songs for us. I was impressed. She normally wants to be by herself or with other adults. I am hoping this is the positive change that I was looking for by sending her to preschool.

WVU tailgate

2010-09-19T09:06:00.005-04:00

While Chris, April and Max here visiting, we attended the WVU game and had a tailgate at my friend Wendy's house.

This is Jack. We had to call her Jack and a little boy the whole game...

Aunt Wendy and Lydia

The threesome. We are trying to plan a girls getaway if our schedules will ever allow it!

"Jack" and I

She kept putting her necklace around Mark and saying they were twins.

That is Mark's buddy DJ in the background. It was a such a nice day that day and the Mounties shut out Coastal Carolina! Great day all around.

Lydia's pictures

2010-09-16T10:41:00.003-04:00

These are the pictures that Lydia took of our visit with Chris, April and Max. We met them along with other friends of April's at Chestnut Ridge Park for pizza and park fun.

Gensuwa Ryder

2010-09-14T10:26:00.003-04:00

Here is our SUPER lovey cat Gensuwa Ryder. He is so handsome and so good with Lydia which was my number one concern!
He is very playful as well.

and very cuddly. I don't know if it is b/c he is still a small kitten when we got him or if it is because he is boy or what..but this kitten loves to be around other people.

Pirates Game

2010-09-13T09:19:00.007-04:00

Nonni and Poppi took us to a Pirates game this summer.
Of course she had to have some pink cotton candy and popcorn to occupy her time. Although it was not a boring game. We did win the game and we got to see two home runs by Pirates no less!!

The Parrot came very close to us and was squirting the kids with a water gun.

Attitude

Cheese

Nonni brought a pink glove for her to catch a fly ball with, although there were a few that came close to us, we did not get a foul ball.

Foolin around

Uncle Mike and Aunt Kelly lovin on Lydia.

On Sundays, kids get to run the bases. Here was Poppi waiting for Lydia to come out of the tunnel.

Here was Mike and Nonni giving her a high five before the big run.

Here we go..parents are not really allowed to run with them, but with the real little ones they don't complain too much.

rounding first

Heading to second

Coming home

Daddy grabbing her from going around a second time

Rock n Roll

Pittsburgh Zoo 2010

2010-09-08T21:45:00.003-04:00

So we decided on the hottest day of the year to go to the zoo. I was pleasantly surprised of how cool the zoo really was with all the trees and mist zones..so we ended up having a really good time.

Here is Lydia riding the "Log jammer" I am sure this one was super boring considering that she went on the real one at Kennywood last year with us.

Daddy and Lydia walking across the scary bridge.

We took this picture last year and I am sure my mom hates this one just as much. She cannot stomach the thought her granddaughter is going to be a Polar Bear and not a Husky.

Lydia and I loved the Penguins..she actual hit a few kids doing her arm/hand flap thing...

I am telling you, my kid is TALL. People don't believe me until they see her in person. She has the longest legs and no it is not just compared to me! She is even taller than this now. This picture was taken on July 5th. While at the beach the last week of July, just like last year, Lydia took a growth spurt. I knew that her shorts looked a little shorter but it was confirmed when we got back and Lydia could walk around Nonni and Poppi's pool with her head above water.

She loved the baby elephant. When we were there, the mama was bathing the baby by squirting water from her trunk. All the kids loved it!

Ocean City

2010-08-20T10:48:00.007-04:00

Nonni, Poppi and Lydia chillin and eating snacks..
Here we are eating at our fave Italian

We had fun with daddy...

riding rides at the end of the boardwalk

resting in on the beach

I thought she looked so funny especially because mom was also hand feeding her at this point..spoiled much?

Family photo

Mike and Kelly..

Another shot of the WV

Loved this shot..

building sand castles

Her Jackie-O hat..

Chasing waves

Nonni and she soaking up the Vitamin D

Gensuwa Ryder

2010-08-15T06:25:00.002-04:00

Meet Lydia's new kitty Gensuwa Ryder. Lydia named him obviously so I completely made up the spelling...when you ask her what Gensuwa means she say "nice kitty or happy kitty". Who knows with this kid. She could have completely made it up or for all I know it could be Japanese for happy cat.

Mark is happy to finally have another man in the house.

He is very sweet and loving. We got him from a home that had young children so he is already used to being lugged around and loved on. Thelma and Marian are doing pretty well with him, better than expected really.

First Dentist Visit

2010-08-05T10:17:00.002-04:00

All of Lydia's teeth have come in perfectly and she has never complained about them so I just never thought about taking her to the denist. I was looking around for a local dentist because I was tired of driving to Morgantown. It dawned on me that I should take Lydia in as well. After trying to get ahold of a couple places, I tried Dr. Hannah on the recommendation of Junior League mom. I call to made sure they took my insurance and they said they had a 1:00 cancellation if we wanted to come in today since they were booked pretty tight until school started. So off we went... Lydia does not like noise. She hate the sweeper, the hair dryer, even my spin brush. So I was a little worried about the polisher. As expected she freaked out when she heard that sound in the other room (although, I think they were actually drilling). She was covering her ears and refusing to sit in the chair. The hygienist was so good with her. Promised her that this time she could just use a pink and purple toothbrush with butterflies on it.

She did perfect from that time on. Did exactly as she was asked to and got a perfect report!

more wedding

2010-07-31T09:58:00.002-04:00

Here are some more photos of Vince and Mami's wedding.

Lydia with her handsome ring bearer.
Lydia with her equally handsome escort Uncle Dan. I guess a bridesmaid could not made it to the wedding so Dan got to walk Lydia up the aisle where she promptly asked him if "now they were married"...LOL

Here she is doing her flower girl duties..and Kathy and I doing our bossing around duties..

The beauitful couple

and Lyd parting the night away dancing with the bride.

Flower Girl times 2

2010-07-19T13:38:00.004-04:00

My brother Vince's wedding...

And Mark's buddy Vince's wedding this weekend...

Whew..what a week. Two weddings, two flower girl performances..and two grooms named Vince.

Whoops..Happy Belated Fathers Day

2010-06-20T09:16:00.006-04:00

I had been working on this post this weekend and I guess I got sidetracked. Oh well, we Hattens never do anything on time so I guess it is appropriate that this post would be late.

What a great Daddy God blessed Lydia with...He does so much with her.

Building safer TV stands together.

Letting her steal his best hat

Dressing up with the Halloween theme of Lydia (and mama's ) choice.

Year after year..

Keeping her safe at the beach

Being silly with her

Enjoying Moutaineer sports with her...how many dad's cried the first time they took their daughters to a football game..seriously folks, real tears!

Is willing to play beauty shop

and be photographed doing it.

More silly times,

Goin Fishin

WE LOVE YOU DADDY,

Mama and Lydia

House of Hatten Spa

2010-06-16T10:19:00.002-04:00

There are not butterfly massage chairs at House of Hatten Spa but we still have fun!

Mother's Day 2010/Birthday Celebration

2010-06-13T13:44:00.009-04:00

This the little girl day spa here in Clarksburg. Aunt Wendy bought Lydia a little princess for a day package. Due to a scheduling screw up on my part, Aunt Wendy did not get to go. We had several date and both had to cancel..I was supposed to cancel this one as well but forgot, then when I tried to the day of, they have a 24 hour cancellation policy, so off we went.
She was a little nervous with the chair, she hates anything that sounds like a vacuum cleaner.

She finally put her feet in...

put really liked the massage better.

Yellow with butterflies which she picked off like an hour after this. She did not bother any of the other paint, just had to get off the butterfly...

Next up, nails. She picked green.

Getting her hair done, not much you can really do with it, but she loved all the glitter in it.

Glad it is not just me she is uncooperative with...

She gave up and just dumped on the glitter.

Now for the best part, her make up. She did not move a muscle when she was putting this on.

TA DA...she does that weird thing with her mouth because she hate moving her mouth after putting on lipstick. I guess she is afraid of smearing it.

Love her to pieces.

Our little tree hugger..

Beauty Shop

2010-05-17T09:47:00.003-04:00

So on Lydia's Easter Ruby and Max Video, there is an episode called Beauty Shop. Lydia / "Ruby" has constantly been wanting to give Mark/ "Max" a make over with me/ "Louise" as her helper. With the help of some make up Miranda give her for her birthday she got her wish last weekend. After every application of rouge as she calls it, she has to put more lipstick on herself.

I love this nail polish, it just washes off with soap and water. I have been trying to find some more of it for when this runs out.

As my role of Louise, I got to do Max's hair.

Fun times! Is it great Lydia has a Daddy that lets her do all kinds of fun stuff with him? Not only am I allowed to document it with a picture...Mark has this photo as his Facebook picture! I am shocked how many mom's have said to me "My husband would have never let my kid do that to them"....I am just lucky I guess! Mark loves playing tea party, make up, dinosaurs, wrestling, fishing pretty much anything Lydia will play with him!

Lydia is very into pretending right now. Usually she is recreating some episode of a show she watched. Last night we were Fraggles. Lydia was Mogley, I was Red and Mark was the Trash Heap I think. It has been so fun watching the Fraggles again after all these years. It was a great show.

We got the DVD that you use your Wii that connects to your Netflix and it has been awesome. That is how we have been watching the Fraggle Rock. Also, while I have been home sick last week, Lydia and I watched 8 Scooby Doo movies.

Mother's Day Tea

2010-05-11T17:13:00.002-04:00

Here are our buddies Whitney and Annabelle. We don't get to see them often enough and I was so glad to see her, her mama Michelle and her grandmother Ann at the tea.

Obviously Lydia and Annabelle had much to catch up on.

Her are all of my brother Vince's ladies...Courtney, his fiance, Lydia his goddaughter and his mama.

Here are there generations of Simons. I think that is where Lydia gets her tall, skinny genes from...although my mom and I are not good examples..ha/ha.

Finally all of us together, minus Kelly (my sister in law) who could not make it.

Easter Egg Hunt

2010-05-03T11:51:00.003-04:00

All the broken pine trees in our yard made excellent hiding places...

After all that searching, she was worn out.

another Easter, another year without a picture of her in her dress...I guess b/c we go to Easter Vigil and we are rushing around like madmen to get there and then she is passed out when we get home. I think Nonni and Aunt Courtney might have some pictures, hopefully they will send me some and I can post them on here!

More Hatten Family Vacation

2010-04-30T10:35:00.003-04:00

Getting kisses from the newly renamed Grandma RiRi. Here is Aunt Nat new haircut. Lydia was so excited to see her and keeps asking when she is going to see her again..

Silly or Scary face..I don't know which one she is doing and they are the same.

Rock n Roll face..her Uncle Chris taught her that

Here is Lydia taking care of her very sick mama...this is how I spent most of my vacation. It was very restful I guess.

Gatlinburg

2010-04-27T09:23:00.005-04:00

Here is Lydia being a conductor on the skylift thing we rode while at Gatlinburg. She got to stand with the conductor and she just loved that all the folks on there were talking to her and praising her for such a good job. We decided to ride that to get a better view of the Smokey Mountains since the weather and my health was not cooperating for much hiking.
On the way up she showed us this "cabin". It is owned by Mattel and is an exact replica of the Barbie dream house..isn't awesome? Anyone can rent it..anyone with tons of cash that is...

I tried to get a nice "three generations of Hattens" photo but as many of you know..getting a three year old to cooperate is kinda hard.

This was really the best one we got.

Here was our version of rock climbing. I guess this picture tells a big reason of why I don't keep purses for long..could I have stuffed anymore crap in there!!!

Lydia playing around on the rocks.

This was our 10 minute hike from the day before that did not go well.

Click, take a pic! Lydia hanging out at the cabin pretending to take pictures of everyone.

and this is for Lara...Lydia does have the right gear..I have no idea how she did not end up in any of her Mountaineer gear for the pictures. LOL.

Tennesse Trip

2010-04-26T14:35:00.002-04:00

So I am just going to say right now, I will post very few pictures of myself from this trip because I was sick the whole trip. I look awful in all of them. I had a head cold on the way down then on Tuesday it turned into one of the worst cases of stomach flu I have ever had.
So anyway, this was the only black bear we saw in the land of black bears. It was raining most of the trip so we did not get to hike as much as we wanted.
Here is Lydia and daddy being silly with the black bear. The kitty that Mark is holding was a gift from the lady where we ate lunch. It was a super cute and very yummy cafe but she called Lydia a boy. So I think she felt bad and gave her the stuffed cat!

More funny pictures with the bear.

She was not real sure about standing beside him.

The cabin was wonderful. It was better than the website promised. How often do you hear that?

Here was the hallway to the bathroom.

The master bedroom.

The huge tub and the water heater was big enough to fill it with hot water..it was so nice.

More to come..

Bowling

2010-04-26T09:26:00.001-04:00

Check out Miranda's blog for some fun pictures of us bowling with the Weekley!

Random Thursday Thoughts

2010-04-08T18:05:00.002-04:00

Here is Lydia playing with one of her dots from her party.

Here she is eating her most favorite food Cheerios!

This was Lydia chillin at the hotel down in Charleston when we were watching the Lady Huskies win their back to back state championships.

This was cheering on our Final Four Mountaineers!

Foolin around with Daddy

2010-03-26T13:39:00.000-04:00

They are so silly.

Birthday Morning..

2010-03-16T11:42:00.001-04:00

There might be a nasty rumor going around that a certain mama hid a Christmas present in a certain crib and did not find it until New Years Eve. So the since this hypothetical kid might have a February birthday she might have just found the present waiting for her February 1st morning. So how did we get from the picture above to the picture below?

Lots and lots of help from Lydia. She had her tools and was very helpful in getting her scooter put together.

Polka Dot Party

2010-02-17T14:48:00.001-05:00

January 30th, 2007

2010-01-31T03:53:00.002-05:00

This was my first day of Maternity Leave. It was a Tuesday. I had gone to my appointment on Monday and my doc said, I am not asking anymore, I am telling you. So we thought it would be fun to get pictures of me with the baby in the big snow storm...never knowing that I was going to go into labor that evening..

Christmas Morning

2010-01-28T14:18:00.002-05:00

Here is Lydia opening her gifts on Christmas morning. We had brunch for the whole family that morning even the puppies...here is Geno rockin his WVU gear his cousin Louie got for him.

and here is Lydia rockin her WVU gear. Uncle Mike and Aunt Kelly got this for her and loves it. She has been wearing it to basketball games and she tell people she is a Mountaineer.

She loves her tools. Even though they are not official Handy Mandy tools, She calls them Pat, Squeese, Dusty, Philpi (sp?), Turner and Stretch.
She would not stop playing with them to open more of her toys.!

I got her more of the Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willams.

Princess Yatzee that I think is harder than real Yatzee..

Christmas Eve

2010-01-11T21:31:00.003-05:00

Here is Lydia opening in her stocking at Nonni's. This was an "Ocean View Barbie"..I have no idea where she thought of that.

Here she is combing her hair. She is just now kinda getting into doll babies. She actually asked for a Barbie at Walmart right before Chirstmas. It was a mermaid one..which she ended up getting two of and she LOVES.
These next couple of pictures are ones that Lydia took...This is Uncle Mike scratching his lottery tickets.
This is Mark..not sure what she was telling her.
Now he is opening his stocking but you can see a little part of her finger.

Snow, Snow, Snow

2010-01-02T23:15:00.004-05:00

Snow Day Tea Party

2009-12-21T17:17:00.002-05:00

Lydia dressed herself for her tea party..I helped daddy a bit. She is fallen in love with tea parties all over again because Braylon's MawMaw got her a set for Christmas. (Thanks MawMaw Bonita, she loves them, especially the sugar and creamer).

Here is Daddy taking a double shot of Lydia's fabulous tea.

They are stylin...looks like high tea in England right?

Cheers!
Lydia is not so sure about it.

Testing

2009-12-21T09:45:00.001-05:00

and we have contact!!!!! I downloaded Firefox and now I am able to upload pictures again..I don't have any new pictures of Lydia on my laptop but I will fix that right away!!

Halloween

2009-11-08T07:24:00.007-05:00

I had found when I told folks who Lydia was going to be for Halloween that Sword and the Stone was not Disney's most popular movie. So I have provided some pictures so you know who we are

Disney's version of Sword in the Stone

The Hatten Family's version of The Sword in the Stone

I do have to say, these were the most fun costumes we have done yet. Most everything was something we had to we borrowed. I enjoyed creating the costumes instead of just buying a pre-made one. I thought you could see the "inscription" on the sword from this picture.
Here is Merlin, Wart/Boy/King Arthur, Merlin and the Archimedes the Owl. In the movie, Arthur's foster family call him Wart or "the boy" most of the movie. So if you ask what Lydia what she was for Halloween she would tell you "the boy". I thought we would just embrace Lydia looking like a boy instead of fight it.and here is our version. I think we entered Mark and Lydia in a Father/Daughter contest they would have won. Everyone commented on his costume, no one guess Merlin exactly but they all knew he was a wizard. If you want to see a cool Mother/Son combo head on over to Miranda's blog..she has come cute pictures of the kids together as well.

Mad Madame Mims. She is a female wizard that Melin duels in the movie. I guess there is such a character in the book but her name is something different. It is too early for me to text April what it is so just believe me or google it! Here is Wart trying defeat the evil Mad Madame Mims. I tried very hard to make my hair purple. I used two cans of that spray stuff.
Lydia and Braylon trick or treated a little together in Braylon's neighborhood.

Then we visited our friends that we do every year b/c they all live in like a half mile radius of each other.

Vickie and Jack

Uncle Mike and Aunt DJ

and what officially was our first place but I was tired of fighting the pictures on here

Mike and Donna's

Archimedes, I think he is my favorite character in the movie. I first was going to try and be him but Owl costume was going to be too hard. Thanks Braylon for letting us borrow your Owl! He is riding on top of Mark's hat in case you missed him the first time.

Halloween 2008

Halloween 2007

More Halloween 2007

We made it to my mom and dad and Aunt Kathy's but I think that was toward the end of the evening and the kids were really fighting the cameras. I know I did not get any pictures but Kathy and Nonni might have.

Don't pass out

2009-11-04T21:09:00.005-05:00

Here is two posts in two days..this was WVU midnight madness. We had a good time. We are sharing two season tickets. I am excited to go because Lydia really has enjoyed the games in the past.

Here are the famous piggy tails I have waiting so long for..

more of the piggy tails...

We got to see a couple of friends there with their little girls and Lydia loved visiting with them.

Go Moutaineers!

10 on Tuesday the photo edition

2009-11-03T22:26:00.002-05:00

I have kicked Mark off the desktop so I can post some pictures. None of Halloween are downloaded yet but they will be on here ASAP!

I was looking for photos that I had not published and I found some golden oldies that we downloaded from my Mom's camera.

Here they are in the Hough Park in Mannington. Here was a visit to Nonni's work. Lydia still loves to pretend she is typing. I am sure it has nothing to do with the fact that everyone she knows is attached to a computer or cellphone, typing or texting.

Here was Uncle Mike's college graduation May of 2008.

This was from last spring I believe at the West Virginia Game Farm.

Here are some more up to date photos, Lydia carrying around her buddy Thelma. Yes, our cat lets her do this.

Poor Thelma.

Here is our first official "tail" as she called it. This is when she announced one morning before church that she was a girl and that she needed bows and a tail.

She was very proud of it.

Here is Louie, Uncle Vince and Aunt Courtney's dog. We are still waiting on a visit from Geno, Lydia's other furry nephew from her Uncle Mike and Aunt Kelly.

This was Lydia playing around with Mark's buddies kids. They were so good with her and had such a good time.

Enjoy and I will try my best to get the Halloween one up soon.

10 on Tuesday

2009-10-20T10:14:00.003-04:00

1. I have posting most of my pictures on facebook for those of you who have facebook accounts. I am still working on getting my laptop to work with blogger and post pictures but I am not hopeful.

2. Sad news, I have withdrawn Lydia from dance school. She loved loved loved the first three weeks. Then parent observation night happened. She went in like normal. Mark came slightly later than us and Lydia saw him walk in. She tried to run out of the room and one of the assistants picked her up and told her no, she could not go outside. Lydia had a meltdown. I do not blame the assistant, she was doing what she was supposed to, keeping Lydia safe and not letting her run outside the room and the assistant did not know that Mark had just walked in. But that did it for Lydia. She did finally make her escape and no amount of coaxing would get her back in. Next week, she dressed and went to class but would not go in the room. This past Wednesday she would not even get dressed or leave the house to go. I am so sad that one negative event has ruined the whole situation for her.

3. Good news is that Miss Stephine said if after awhile Lydia asked to come back she would be more than welcome to start classes back up.

4. So this is the week that the school are celebrating Red Ribbon Week. This means that I am supposed to coordinate 4 different Red Ribbon Weeks since I go to 4 different schools. One would think that the coordinator would remember to wear red today...oh well.

5. So Mark is out of town and I have a complete new respect for you working mommies that take you kids to daycare before you go to work..Lord have mercy..how do you do it. Thank God, I did not have to feed her breakfast or pack a "bag" of stuff since I just had to take her to my Aunt. I cheated and asked it my Aunt could come to my house tomorrow since I have to leave for work by 7:20 as it is without having to make extra stops. I guess if that was always our routine, we would be used to it but Lydia was not happy with getting up so early this morning, I am not even trying it the rest of the week. My dad always comes and picks her up thank goodness b/c I would have to leave the house at 5:45am on Thursday if I had to talk her to Mannington!

6. Have I mentioned that my family is not morning people?

7. Have I also mentioned that I am very spoiled to have my Dad come and get my child and bring her back to me on his babysitting days. I am very grateful as well now that I have had a small taste of the real working mommy world.

8. I also broke down and got the flu shot after swearing that I wouldn't. Geez, those doctors really know how to get that mommy guilt churning.

9. I am thinking about switching doctors. I love my doctor but I don't love that she is in Morgantown. I also don't love that she in a practice that when you call for a sick visit, you just get whoever, you cannot request her. And I hate that I have to take a whole sick day to go for my appointment..but I also hate change so we will see..

10. I was 100% this week on Football wins..Steelers, WVU and my fantasy football teams!

10 on Tuesday

2009-09-29T10:58:00.002-04:00

1. Tomorrow is one of the days we get to watch Lydia in dance class, I am really excited. I hope that she is listening and not just running around like a wild women.

2. The world of pretend, here we come. It is so darn cute to hear her talking to herself. "Hi Dora, How are you" "I'm good"...and so on and so on. She has been pretending with us for a little while, we are Merryweather and Flora while she is Sleeping Beauty..but just in the past day or two she has independently started picking up her toys and makes them "talk" to each other.

3. We have been getting her to sleep at night by having her read to her babydoll. It is so sweet.

4. Speaking of reading..my kid loves Mo Willems books..has anyone read Piggie and Gerald books to their kids? I am not allowed to read them to Lydia anymore..she has to read them to me. But she LOVES them. She sniffed out The Naked Mole Rat gets Dressed out of my bag as soon as I sat it down (She loves that book and I checked it out of the library yesterday) She plopped down and started reading it on the kitchen floor.

5. I am so thankful for an old high school buddy on Facebook. We cannot find two of Lydia most favorite DVD's. Mickey Christmas and Cinderella. We had them on our camping trip in July. I remember Lydia watching Cinderella twice when we were stuck on the interstate during a wreck. I have searched everywhere and we just don't know where it is. So I researched Cinderella and it is so expensive to buy it now b/c "it is in the Disney Vault". Even the cheaper ones I found on Ebay, they want a lot to ship it. Anyway, my facebook buddy said she would mail me her VHS tape of Cinderella. All she wants paid for is postage..THANK YOU!

6. On Saturday, we met my parents for breakfast and Lydia was messing with the folks behind us. Finally we let her down to go and see Poppi while he was paying. I overheard the man say. "Oh look how cute, HE just ran from him and went into the backroom." Really? She had PINK pants on..

7. Later that day we went to see our friend Dereck and his band play. A man said something about Lydia being a boy. Usually I just let it pass but I was already grumpy about what had happened that morning and I said. "Actually, she is a girl and her name is Lydia"..the mans response??? "Why do you keep her hair so short?"

8. At the last WVU game this one man kept repeatedly calling Lydia "him" even after he read her Cinderella and a Mermaid book. Finally a women that was with him said, "She is a girl, look at her shoes". Not to mention that the shirt she had on had her name on her chest.

9. To continue the theme..the creme de la creme. There has been at least three different occasions where men, after I correct them on Lydia's gender, tell me to pierce her ears!! I am not kidding you.

10. No wonder my kid has a dress fetish and tells me constantly "I can't like pants, mama, I can't like wearing pants."

Mannington Fair

2009-09-26T22:05:00.002-04:00

Lydia and Braylon had such a good time. They had really been missing each other by the time we got to go to the fair. We had been gone for 10 days! I wanted to post the rest of the beach and some of Mark's family reunion but I cannot find where he has those stored on this desktop. So the fair is what you get. Chattin' it up with some other folks.

Here we are on the top of the Ferris Wheel.

I was happy that the fish were back this year..actually they had more kid rides this year than in the past couple years.

The spaceships were a big hit. They rode them twice.

Here is the Merry Go Round shot. Mark did not go with us this year so we did not get a shot of them together..I was sad about that. Plus both times we tried to get on there someone took the horse with the roses on it.

These guys are such good buddies. I love it.

Just an update, Lydia is still absolutely loving dance school. We actually get to watch her this month so I am pretty excited. I hope she is doing well. She showed us some dance moves this week. I was proud that she is learning something! We also started Library School back up. If you remember last year, my dad refused to take her back. He said this time Lydia did great. She is growing up. She actually told someone today she was three!

Going against my OCD...

2009-09-10T19:10:00.004-04:00

I am going to post pictures out of order. I know that people really want to see Lydia in her dance stuff so here she is...I will go back and fill in from the beach to now later.
Here she is in her original outfit . Rockin the purple pumps courtesy of Laura. Notice the foam piece around her middle. She was very upset that this outfit did not include a "ballerina dress".

She walks and dances in heels very well..some how this worries me..

She after several request to take her foam tutu off and then crying when forcible removed by mama, we compromised on one of her leotards that has a skirt. I was not 100% sure she was allowed to wear these and I guess there is still confusion if she is..but she LOVED it. She was hugging herself saying "I love ballerina dresses".

Warming up

These ladies are some friends in her class. They are of the daughters of the mothers I knew from work. This was the first time the girls met. She had one more buddy but she was a little later and did not make into this picture.

Here was Lydia's handiwork. She has been a picture taking fool. I will post more of those later.

She loved, loved, loved dance school. They danced to the princess songs for the ballet part and the Imagination Movers songs during the tap part. When Lydia came out to change her shoes, all she would say was "Change them mama, change them" then ran right back into the class after I put her tap shoes on her. I don't know how well she did in the actual class. Ms. Stephine did not ask me to come in and remove her and the helpers did not bring her out to me..so I guess she did ok. The last week of September we are allowed to watch from a window. I cannot wait! She did earn a stamp, sticker and a sucker that she was pretty proud of..

Makeup

2009-09-04T19:27:00.003-04:00

These pictures are backwards but I was so glad to be able to post some, I did not care. Lydia is lovin' to play in my makeup. I have clear mascara that I use on my eyebrows but for some reason Lydia wants to put the black stuff on hers..you should have seen my face.

More Beach Pics

2009-08-24T23:41:00.002-04:00

Lovin' the Water

Yoga on the Beach

It took her a while because she was kinda afraid of the waves at first. But she ended up loving it.

More Beach pics

2009-08-24T23:36:00.002-04:00

Nose kisses with Mommy

Here Comes the Wave

Admiring her Ladybug

Beach Pics

2009-08-24T23:29:00.002-04:00

Fun with Daddy

She Loved this balloon Ladybug. She looks like she's drunk in this picture but she was just tired from all the running around.

Can you tell that she enjoyed her Lollipop from Nonni?

not sure

2009-08-19T08:55:00.002-04:00

Everyone else seems to be able to post photos but it will not let me still. Maybe it is my computer?? If you have Facebook, I am posting beach photos there..sorry guys, I don't know what is wrong.

I am trying

2009-08-15T12:17:00.001-04:00

I have tried to post beach pictures on her for three days and it will not let me..I have not forgotten you..

Visit

2009-08-13T10:31:00.002-04:00

Mark has a high school friend named Luke who lives in the southern part of the state. His wife Beth and he just had their first little girl named Juliann. She is sooo pretty. We met for dinner and then went out for ice cream..

You just have to see how sweet it is to see this big man holding this little tiny girl..she loves her daddy bunches already.

Her big beautiful eyes. I wish I had got a better picture of her dress. Oh also a picture of her pretty momma..I thought I got a picture of the three of them together but I guess I didn't.

Lydia finally wore her out.

We had a great visit with you all and cannot wait to get the girls together again. Yes, I will post some more beach pictures soon.

Birds of a feather

2009-08-11T11:26:00.003-04:00

flock together....
or I could have named it Like Father, Like Daughter...

Mark in Hawaii on our honeymoon

Lydia at Margaritaville at Myrtle Beach

I have no idea how she got the courage to do this but she begged my mom to let her. She first asked to go and pet the bird. Then when she got there she kept asking to hold the bird. The man was hesitant to do it but Lydia insisted that she would hold her arm still..and she did.

We have been absolutely everywhere this summer and have been so busy. I promise to keep up with the blog better. Mark just downloaded over 250 pictures from the camera.

Camping

2009-07-19T20:33:00.004-04:00

After several triesand being washed out, we finally got to go camping. Here is our wonderful tent. This was one of the first two big things Mark and I bought together, the other was a grill.
Here is Lydia fooling around in the tent. She loved it and we pretended we were "Toot and Puddle" the whole weekend.

She had to practice her yoga in nature.

This was when Mark and I were tearing down camp. That is my Zune that Lydia is watching. How awesome is it that you can download TV shows. This is how I survive taking walks and shopping. Lydia is now in the stage of "I do it" so she of course wants to walk not ride in a buggy or stroller.

But the cutest thing about it is she will ask for my Zune by saying "My smallest TV". She is very into tallest/smallest and biggest/smallest. She is pretty good and figuring it out too!

Here is what I love to do at camp..cook and eat.

Chillin at the campfire.

Sleeping in front of the campfire.

Watching the fire. No surprise, we had a hard time getting Lydia to go down. Her new way of telling us no is "I cannot like naps", "I cannot like potty's", "I cannot like strollers"..isn't that funny? I have no idea how she comes up with these things.

Why have I gained three pounds this summer so far?

2009-07-17T11:43:00.003-04:00

Oh yeah, Lydia and I have been baking up a storm.

Brownies

How nice, she is sharing...don't worry hon, mama got the bowl and the scraper!

Doesn't it look like she is praying.."thanks you Jesus for my mama having a chocolate attack this morning"

She just cracks me up.

Are you still taking pictures of me?

Seriously mom, cut it out.

Dig in!

and this does not count the number of pans of Rice Krispie Treats I have made. I have been craving those like crazy. And the trips to the DQ...ahhh summer.

Kennywood

2009-07-15T08:30:00.003-04:00

Back in the first weekend of June, our friends Wendy and Bryce let us tag along on Wendy's firm retreat. I was kinda worried about taking Lydia and not having enough to do at Kennywood. But with her tennis shoes on, she could get on many of the rides. One of the great things with her being tall. She even got to ride the log jammer with us.
This car thing was faster than I thought it would me. Lydia loved driving.

This was like the tilt a whirl.

This was a mini Phantom's Revenge. This was the only ride Lydia acted afraid to get on but she loved it once it started. And she would ride in the front with her Daddy, unlike her mama on the real one.

Here is Bryce and Mark riding a baby Demon Drop...again I did not want to ride the adult version of that. I finally agreed and then it broke while we were in line. Has anyone noticed that they can ride less now that they are older...or maybe it has to do with having a baby..I don't know.

Lydia loved this ride as well.

She thought she was big stuff riding these rides by herself.

She was acting so cool on this ride she would not look at us to get a picture.

This was the first ride we put her on. She played with the lever the whole time while she was waiting for him to load the other kids. Then when the ride was on, she wanted nothing to do with it. She had no problems leaving us for the ride workers to put her in the rides. She just ate it up.

Still ignoring us.

Seems like we have a picture of her and daddy on one of these every year!

Pickin on...

2009-07-13T22:29:00.002-04:00

The next Jacksons

2009-07-13T10:20:00.002-04:00

Lydia loves playing music and so does her daddy...they also will play guitar and the musicia (or harmonica) I only have video of that and blogger does not like my videos.

Here she is again playing her drum. She likes playing "like a band" meaning she wants you to put the drum around her neck so she can march around.

She is wearing her fireman's hat her Aunt Kelly swiped for her from the fireman's parade down in Buckhannon.

Please excuse her room. We need a toy box or something, her room is always out of control.

much much more to come...two camping trips, visits with friends, babysitting...we have been swamped. No wonder I am so tired during the school year, doing all this plus working..whew.

Swimming

2009-06-30T10:55:00.007-04:00

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

2009-06-20T07:07:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-10T13:57:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-06T07:22:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-05T09:37:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-04T10:14:00.001-04:00

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

2009-06-03T08:33:00.004-04:00

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

2009-06-01T09:19:00.003-04:00

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.

Mother's Day

2009-05-28T09:26:00.003-04:00

Or I could have named this post frustration of trying to get a nice picture of a two year old.

Here is Kathy (Lydia's godmother) in the parking lot of Church.

They did not do too bad minus Lydia would not look at the camera.

Doesn't she look soo happy in his picture. Please don't look at her hair. Mark and I have been blessed with long, thick, dark hair. I have no idea whose hair my daughter has. It will not grow, it has some crazy wave in it that makes it be all over the place. It is too thin to put any bow or rubber band in. It will be the bane of my existence. All I ever wanted is to have a girl so I could name her Lydia and play with her hair!!

This one was the "best" one we got and you can can it was not great.

I HATE this one.

Her hat kept falling off because is was extremely windy that day. Here is the funny story behind the cheesy matching dresses. I bought this dress for $8 two years ago at JCPenney on clearance and have not worn it. Back on Lydia's birthday, Mom's friend Mary Gay had a package delivered to our house. This beautiful dress from Children's Place. So no, I did not intentionally go out and buy us matching dresses...but I was cheesy enough to have us wear them on the same day.

Lydia's First Fishing Trip

2009-05-27T10:27:00.003-04:00

For Mother's day, all I wanted was for the three of us to hang out and spend some quality time together. No cell phones, no laptops, no TV. So we headed up to Chestnut Ridge Park to try out Lydia's Barbie fishing pole.

Daddy showing her the ropes

I thought this one was so sweet

Letting her reel it in on her own

Trying to hook a fish

Got one

Here is one of the THREE fish that Lydia's pole caught. After catching this one, she was terrified. She hated that is splashed around in the water. Even after we showed her that we put them back and they swim away..she screamed for me and asked to go home!

So Lydia and I played on the playground until it was time to cook dinner. We moved to a different lake and Lydia acting like she was interested again..and that is when all the pictures above were taken. But as soon as she caught another fish she was DONE. Oh well, she hated fishing but it did make for some great pictures.

Two peas in a pod.

10 on Tuesday

2009-05-19T10:06:00.002-04:00

1. The biting has stopped for now. I did not bite her back but I might have really lost my temper while she was biting my hip and yelled at her like I have never yelled at her before (hanging head in shame). It really scared her. I am not proud that I did that and I am not planning on doing it again..but it did seem to stop it.

2. The bruise on my arm from Mothers Day is still there..I am beginning to think I should have not let her watch Twilight LOL!

3. Now we are on a sleep strike. She seems to be fine but mommy and daddy are exhausted. Going to sleep around 11:30 after trying since 9pm to get her down, then getting up around 6...and waking up once in between.

4. She is just getting funnier and funnier. She was playing with a little boy yesterday at my parents house. She just bossed him around and when he did not listen "Two minutes little boy". Mark did not seem one bit surprised that MY little girl was bossy...hmmmm

5. I have to announce that I drove to Mannington last night and did NOT get a Dairy Queen. That is really record for me.

6. Remember that silly robe that I bought guiltily for no other reason than it matched her big girl room. Lydia loves it. She will barely will let you dry her off before she is yelling for her robe. She loves running around the house in it.

7. My mom bought Lydia a bike. She has been asking for one every time we go to Walmart and she sees them. She got it at a yard sale.

8. I love my Zune. We survived WVU graduation by downloading Wonder Pets, Backyardigans, and Sesame Street onto my Zune and let Lydia watch. Much less obvious then bringing the DVD player. I have to give props to the Eberly College of Arts and Science though..they had a wonderful speaker at graduation. He is the creator of Mountainstage and he sang and told really funny stories.

9. Lydia and I have been tyring to do a Kids Yoga routine from this website YogaToday podcast on Zune. She likes downward dog and frog. I try and do the hour long adult session the actual website when I can sneak in an hour to myself.

10. Only 12 more days of school with kids, 14 more for teacher..WHOOO HOOO...

Thankful Thursday

2009-05-14T12:18:00.003-04:00

I am stealing this idea from my friend Jennie because it is less stressful than trying to come up with 10 things!

I am thankful that Lydia is a good eater. I read and hear about these stories where kids will only eat 5 things. She has gone through little phases where she did not want to eat but we have found it was more of a control thing than a food thing. (I know experienced parents..big shocker there) If we place the plate in front of her and say nothing about it she will eat pretty much anything we put on there. Last night she ate fish and corn!
I am so thankful that we were able to take Lydia to Disney. I just cannot believe how blessed we were to be able to that so early on in her life when it was still so magical for her.

I am thankful for Thelma Lou. We could never ask for a better cat. She is so patient and loving with Lydia. She even did great with Annabelle when she came over.

I am not thankful for the biting stage that we are going through right now. I thought about posting the HUGE bruise on my arm that my loving daughter gave to me on Mother's Day but I reconsidered it. Yes, it was so big and deep that it is still on my arm 5 days later. I have no idea why this started back up but it need to end FAST. I am losing my patience with it.

Super Lydi...Finally

2009-05-13T09:33:00.003-04:00

We have been looking for these picture for a long time. I have been telling Miranda and her Mama (who made the "cape") that I had these cute picture of Lydia but I could not find them. Bonita made this beautiful sweater for Lydia before she was born.

She loves wearing it around but will not put her arms in the sleeves..I thought this next picture was really funny, not only does she have a funny look on her face, she also looks completely like a boy!

Here she is hangin with her best buddies, Thelma Lou and Daddy.

Admiring Bonita's handy work. The pictures don't do it justice.

Daddy helping her to fly.

She is most likely trying to convince Mark to help her fly again.

Nope, she was just after Daddy's hat.

Can you tell she has been watching Diego? Click, take a pic! She likes him better than Dora really.

Here is a funny story. A friend gave me some of those plastic letters for my fridge. I was excited because they were lowercase and I thought, "Oh, this will be great, we can start working on her lowercase letters because she knows her uppercase letters." So I get them out last night and to my surprise, Lydia already knows most of her lowercase letters. The only one I heard her mess up was she kept calling the lower case L the number one. But I hate to even call that a mistake because they do look alike!

Dress up

2009-05-12T09:28:00.004-04:00

Lydia loves dressing up. These pictures are actually from quite a while ago but were hidden on the computer. We just bought an external hard drive and have been "cleaning up" the computer. Our friend Christy sent Lydia that super cute hat from California. Miranda found the awesome Beatles onesie, the pants are from a bunch of clothes Kathy let us borrow and the galoshes are from Uncle Vince and Countney. She still wears those boots almost every day.
Don't ya just love those big brown eyes...

Think, Think, Think....

Buddies

2009-04-28T09:49:00.002-04:00

Lydia was a little upset when I was holding Max so I decided to let her hold him. She loved it.
He stole a smooch. I think she liked it.

Isn't she such a big girl..I think she will be a good big sister (and NO I am not making an announcement)

He started fussing a little.

Here is was checking to make sure he was ok. Notice the Minnie Mouse sticker on my shirt. My "friends" let me walk around with this sticker on my shirt all day! They claim they never noticed it.

Helping Nonni Part Two

2009-04-24T09:12:00.003-04:00

So after the Easter bread was rising they set to work on baking the Easter Bunny cake and cookies. She loves to stir things and "I do it or I try it" are phrases we are hearing often in our house. Along with "Can we? Can we please?" when she wants to so something.

I think this was the icing not that cake batter..not that it would have mattered.

Really digging in there..

Did I get it all?

Finally Nonni let her out of the kitchen to relax with Poppi.

Helping Nonni

2009-04-23T07:52:00.002-04:00

Preparing to make Easter Bread wearing her Santa Claus cooking outfit...
Mixing up the eggs..

Then kneading the dough..this was her second batch of making bread..that is why she looks like a pro already.

Then she suddenly remembers..

Hey this dough tastes good.

YUM..Easter bread dough is really good. Maybe she is mine after all!

Friendship

2009-04-15T09:58:00.004-04:00

It is easy to see how Mark and Chris have been such good friend for so long. They love the same things...

Their families

Their music

Their furbabies

Lydia did ok with the doggies. Ever since an incident with Miranda's dog (he was not being mean, just over friendly) she has been afraid of dogs. So I asked April and Chris to not call them dogs. We went with the word puppies. For the first hour or so Lydia would not let us put her down. But she slowly got used to them and actually became good buddies with Daisy.

Here are the boys rockin out. I know they really miss getting to play music together since this picture was taken maybe two hours after we got there.

Another shot, I was playing around with the flash so that accounts for some of the "Days of Our Lives dream sequence" lighting.

Here were the kids dancing away. Lydia just cracked up when Max would dance with her. Doesn't she look so BIG!?!

The Beach

2009-04-14T09:46:00.003-04:00

Here we are at Lovers Key (correct me April if that is not right). It is a state park. It was very nice. Different than the Ocean City for sure but in a good way. The water was warm (I put my foot in) and there were shells EVERYWHERE. We did not get to stay for very long with the kids but Lydia loved playing in the sand and swimming in the ocean.
April took Lydia out while Max and I hung out on the sand.

Here is the happy Stowers Clan. People have been asking me who they were. Chris and Mark have been best friends since the second grade. He was the one who stood by Mark while we got married for those of you who were at the wedding. They moved to Florida 4 days after our wedding. This is the first time we have been able to make it down to see them.

I thought this onesie was so cute as well as his glasses.

Here are the two kids hanging. It was so wild how I had so many flashback moments of when Braylon was Lydia's age and Lydia was Max's age. They did so many of the same things. When Max would cry in the car seat Lydia would get upset and try to get me to "fix" it. Then she would sing to him then scream "stop crying". I remember a trip that Mir and I took and Mir saying the same things to Braylon that I was saying to Lydia.

Playing in the sand.

Pure Bliss

2009-04-12T20:38:00.002-04:00

I really do not know how to explain how Lydia was meeting the Princesses and Mickey Mouse. I wish I could put the video on here. She was so happy but so composed. She just walked right up there and gave them big old hugs. She kept snuggling and kissing him on the nose. The Disney Photographer got that picture and it was priceless.
Mickey said that Lydia was so sweet that he wanted to keep her! Of course he really did not say anything, while the Princesses talk; the other characters do not. He did some hand signals and the photographer translated. Again, everyone was very sweet and patient.

Here is when she first got to "see" Mickey and some other characters. We watched a 15 minute show in front of Cinderella's castle. She was extremely hot and did not know what to thing really. This also reminds me how we lost Lydia for about 30 seconds. Of course that was the LONGEST 30 seconds of my life. I did not have her strapped in her stroller since we had to fold it up a couple of times getting to the park. She never once tried to get up from it the whole time so I did not think it was a problem. We were sitting there waiting for the show to start. I saw a lady who had a 1st visit button. I turned around to ask her where she got the button, got her answer and turned back around..and the stroller was empty. I asked Mark where she was since he was sitting right beside her. I have never had a sicker feeling in my stomach. Luckily Mark spotted her orange and purple hat standing in the front of the crowd by the chain. She just wanted a front row seat. We did not let her be unbuckled anymore!

Here were Mickey and Minnie at the show.

Another wonderful part of our trip was going to see the Stowers. Here is Max meeting Mickey and Minnie. It was so fun getting to share our Disney experience with them. We also spent the rest of our time in Florida visiting them in Ft. Myers.

More picture of Lydia and Max next time.

Disney

2009-04-11T10:52:00.002-04:00

Ok, so don't ever let anyone tell you that it is a waste of money to take your young child to Disney "because they won't remember" We had an awesome time at Disney and it was worth every penny. Lydia LOVED it. Princess Aurora, Belle and Cinderella were wonderful. They were so kind and patient. They asked Lydia all kinds of questions and seemed to understand most of Lydia said to them. Lydia was not scared at all. She ran up to all of them and gave them big hugs.
This is Princess Aurora/Briar Rose/Sleeping Beauty. This is the movie that Lydia is really obsessed with watching and had watched on the way up to Disney (We were driving from Ft. Myers, so yes, I was driving up to Orlando)

I though that Belle was beautiful. They all kept calling her Princess Lydi (that is how Lydia now introduces herself "Hi, I'm Lydi")

Cinderella was beautiful and gracious as well. These ladies did an excellent job with all the people there..I saw people because it was not just children getting their pictures taken with the Princesses.

here is the famous Disney shot. One of their photographers took this with our camera for us

coming up...where dreams do come true..meeting Mickey

We must be born with it

2009-04-02T09:53:00.004-04:00

I know these are horrible pictures. They are from my cell phone. But I had to quickly share what I did to my little princess (blah, I cannot believe I just wrote that, I swore I would NEVER call my kid that). I was painting her toes and she was very excited and sat very still while I did it. They I asked her for shits and giggles if she wanted me to do her hands. She said yes. She sat completely still and let me do the first hand...then said nother one and sat and let me do her second hand. Then she sat with all of her finger s outstretched so not to smudge them..I have no idea how she knew do to that. I had Mark come up and see how she was sitting. Later on she was getting down from the chair and was so careful with her fingers..it was so cute and funny. Now if mommy just had someone to do her nails before our warm vacation..sigh.

ps. Finally went to the doctor yesterday since we still had the rash after two and half weeks despite much washing and benedryl. Fifth disease..it is harmless but we get such weird illnesses in my family!

10 on Tuesday

2009-03-31T11:12:00.002-04:00

1. The countdown to Mickey's House is on..We leave Friday to Ft. Myers to visit our friends Chris, April and Max. Then we are driving to Disney on Sunday and coming back to Ft. Myers on Monday. We will be back to WV on Wednesday.

2. Let me tell you how much easier it is to visit a friend who has a baby..so we don't have to worry about baby lotion, baby wash, baby wipes..etc..they have it all!

3. Lydia is still fighting this rash. I am now washing blankets and pillows..I guess once she got irritated EVERYTHING is bothering her.

4. I have some really cute videos that I want to post here but the video button is not working on blogger. I don't know how else to post them.

5. I am so hungry today and school lunch is gross (yes worse than usual, chicken on the bone, yack) I think I might actually leave the building to run and grab some thing.

6. After reporting that our Junior League was closing it's doors, we had a huge upswing and now we are growing. I hope the upswing continues.

7. I really wish that Mark would email me some pictures of Lydia. He is always working on the desktop so I cannot get on there to post any pictures.plus we have some really cute one that are still on the camera!

8. I replaced my Zune last night. I really wanted it for the plane ride and for relaxing on the beach. I am really happy that it was super easy to put my old playlist on my new player.

9. Lydia loved the Easter Bunny. We went to our photographer and had them done rather than the mall. She just went up to the Bunny and talked away, got right up in her lap too. I am feeling better about her meeting Mickey Mouse now.

10. I hope everyone has a great week...see ya all when we get back from Florida.

10 on Tuesday

2009-03-24T10:49:00.002-04:00

1. Lydia is being so funny right now..we have several alter egos that live with us.

2. Robot Lydie- complete with big eyes and monotone voice. She will actually call herself Robot Lydie. This will usually follow with a request for Robot Mommy or Robot Daddy to do something.

3. Super Lydie/ Super Hero-She also will call herself Super Lydie. She will put on a sweater that our dear friend Bonita knitted for her. She will put her arms out to fly. She also will sing the beginning of the Superman theme.

4. Mommy Lydia- She finally is getting into her other babydolls after falling in love with Pinky. She named one of her dolls "mommy".

5. Artist Lydia- She is really into coloring and using stickers. For the past couple of birthdays, she has been decorating some left over blank cards I have. They are really cute.

6. She also likes to tell you what she is doing while she is doing it in case you were not sure. "I'm screaming", "I'm crying", "I'm hitting" ,"I'm sleeping" and "I'm pooping" Then she will follow that up with "2 mintues"

7. We are getting excited to visit Mickey's house. We have been looking at renting a car. Do you know that is will cost me $200 more to rent a car for the week than to fly down Florida round trip?

8. She is really into taking her baths at night..she will cry and cry if I try and get her to go to bed and skip the bath. She has been broke out in a weird rash for about a week so I was trying to only have her bath every other day so not to irritate her skin.

9. Do you think it might be time to look into electrolysis when you are taking a bath with your daughter and she starts brushing your arms with a hairbrush?? I guess being Italian can't be all good.

10. I am ready for Easter Break and I will again say how these are the times I love working for the school system.

Pinky and the Brain

2009-03-19T13:43:00.002-04:00

So while we were down in Charleston cheering on the Lady Huskies to their state Championship, Uncle Vince decided he wanted to take Lydia to Build a Bear. As soon as we went over the the unstuffed animals, Lydia exclaimed "Pink Bear" and grabbed this pink bear with dark pink flowers all over it. She was terrified at the stuffing machine, would not do the heart thingy (Vince's girlfriend Courtney did it), would not wash it, would not pick out an outfit for it (even when we tried to get her a Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty dress for it) and would not name it when it was time to put it into the computer. But she has LOVED this things ever since. Vince even picked up this brush which I thought was going to be a be a waste of money...she loves brushing this thing. We did end up naming it Pinky Bear since that is what she said when she saw it. And she will call it Pinky now which the first time she has named something and stuck to it. This was us walking yesterday in the beautiful weather. I think I might have to scrub the stroller down though b/c for the past two days Lydia has broken out in this horrible rash on her back in the evenings. The only think I can figure out it that there is something on the stroller that is bothering her.

She is serious about her Pinky. Now for the brain, Lydia is doing so many funny things now. She is very into stickers and they are everywhere. But I would rather find stickers places than markers. She is into bossing Mark and I around. Telling us to get up, dance, or whatever she is feeling at the moment. She has also started telling folks "I'm smartie" Do you think we tell her she is smart often? She is back to eating with a vengeance which I am happy about. She even ate some carrots for the past two days. That is the first veggie in quite a while. She is lovin being back outside and in her clubhouse. We are gearing up for the big visit to Mickey's house the first weekend in April. Nonni bought her early Easter outfits down in Charleston so that she would have a new outfit to meet Mickey in. I am also excited to see how Lydia does with Max.

I think that is all for now..these past couple weeks have been a whirlwind or meetings and trips. I hope to be a better blogger and photographer.

Still Kicking sorta

2009-03-11T13:59:00.003-04:00

Warning..pictureless post....I just wanted to let everyone know that we are still alive..just recovering. Lydia had a horrible stomach virus thing that lasted FOREVER. It started Tuesday with her refusing to eat and saying her "tummy hurt". She had never said that before but I did not think anything of it...then Wednesday afternoon all hell broke loose, literally, from both ends of her poor body. By Sunday when she was still vomiting and such, we took a trip to the ER. She was showing some symptoms of appendicitis so off we went for a CAT scan. When that came back negative they needed to check for a UTI...horrible experiences. But after all that, the only answer we got was "it is most likely the flu". The ER doc told me to give her juice, no water, and salty food. Opposite of everything you read..but it seemed to work wonders for her. She still did not eat real food until that Thursday.
In the middle of all that, I ended up with the flu although not as bad as Lydia, then Aunt DJ got it, then Poppi, then Aunt Kathy and as I type this Nonni has it. The only one that has escaped it is Daddy...hmmmm. We had to cancel Daddy's birthday party, we spent Poppi's birthday in the ER...so I don't really have any new photos to share..but if North Marion's girls basketball team wins tonight we are going to Charleston this weekend to watch them play for the Championship. Good Luck Lady Huskies!!

Happy Birthday Daddy

2009-02-26T08:17:00.002-05:00

Mark has been wanting a Pecan Roll from Pokey Dot since he has seen it on the menu. But we are always so full after eating, he does not order it. So last Friday, I got up early and ran down to the Pokey Dot and surprised him with breakfast in bed.
Lydia loved sharing his "birthday cake"

Yeah...Daddy's birthday cake.

So another funny story, the next morning was Saturday and Lydia woke up early. I brought her in bed with me and got her back to sleep. Then when she woke back up she asked where her birthday cake was..

Sleep Issues

2009-02-25T10:31:00.002-05:00

Well I guess after bragging about how well our transition to a big girl bed has been, Lydia had to start acting up...first it was just getting up 100 times and getting toys in the bed.
Then we started finding her here. There were times that I would come in and see her in the chair reading but she had been putting herself back into bed.

But then she started passing out in the chair. So we thought it was because it was too dark for her to read in her bed and she was taking the books over there to read them since her nightlight was there. We have moved her nightlight over next to her bed and it seems to have solved the problem.

Super cute story from last night. Thelma Lou was sleeping in her bed. Next to her bed in the living room is a shelf tower thing that I have picture frames on. Lydia went over to the shelves, got a picture frame, would turn it around so that the picture was facing Thelma Lou and say "Look Thelma, it mommy and daddy" She would say this a few times then go and get a second frame "Look Thelma, it Braylon" and so on until she got all the frames off of the shelves. It was the cutest thing ever!

Ice Skating

2009-02-24T09:37:00.002-05:00

Here we are ice skating at Canaan Valley. It was so fun. I have always loved ice skating and do not go nearly enough. Mark did not enjoy it as much as I did..he had a little trouble letting go of the wall! These were taken after Lydia and I's fourth trip around and she was getting a little tired. But she did great. When we first put the skates on her, she was pretty wobbly. But when I got behind her and skated around with her, she just kept saying "whee, I'm skating". Then I finally put her done on the rubbery stuff and she just took off. She walked around on the skates like she has always had them on her feet!

Our only tumble of the afternoon. Her skate got tangled up in mine.

She of course never really moved her legs but was really good and keeping her legs and ankles straight so I could easily push her along. I see much more ice skating in our future..with daddy as the camera/hot chocolate man.

What Happens When.....

2009-02-23T09:14:00.002-05:00

You and daddy lay down to take and nap and your daddy falls asleep and you don't.....

Here legs are still stained..of course she could not have found a blushing pink or barely nude...she found two new tubes of a deep red and deep magenta...notice how she kept the two colors separate on her two legs. When Mark asked her what she was doing, she said "coloring knees".

Random thoughts

2009-02-18T09:46:00.002-05:00

Here is MY daughter doing what we love most...watching TV...sorry Kim, I really feel for you, I do. Here she is just being funny. We did take her to her two year old check up. She was 34.25 inches. If the old saying comes true, she will be 5'8". Now for those of you that have never really seen Mark and I...I am a little over 4'11" Mark might be 5'11"...then I go to Striderite to get her foot measured. Our Aunt Mary Gay got Lydia a gift certificate there..My daughter wears a 7.5 W...I only wear a 6 and Mark wears a 9!!! She was so tiny for so long..and now she is growing like crazy. I am just glad it is up and not out like her mama and daddy grows! Her verbal skills were beyond the two year old level but anyone who has ever met her could tell you that. Talk is all this kid does!

Here she is snuggled up with one of her new blankets. She has so many wonderful gifts from her party..we cannot thank everyone enough. And I hope to get the thank you cards out sometime soon...

We had a great time in Canann besides not being able to ski. No sickness! We took Lydia ice skating and she LOVED it. It was nice to just get away and relax. Plus the cabin where we stayed has a oven that does not work...so darn, we had to go out to lunch and dinner both nights... ;)

Top Ten Reasons I am sure it is Friday the 13th

2009-02-13T09:45:00.004-05:00

So what a crappy week this has been.

1. My Zune is gone. I had it Tuesday morning when I left for work then when I went to get it to listen to some music during my lunch..it was not in my purse..but my earphones were. There is a possibility that it fell out of my purse but I think it is a stronger possibility that is was stolen. I am still sick over it. I hinted around for two years that I wanted one of these. My brother gets me one for Christmas and now it is gone.

2. I got stuck in the horrible wind storm on the interstate coming home from Morgantown. Nothing I have ever driven in scared me as bad as that storm. I almost got hit by a orange barrel and several cars who I am sure just could not see me. I am not even sure where on the interstate I pulled off or if I was even completely off the road.

3. I called Mark that night and told him to stay in Morgantown with the baby. He decided to try Rt 19. Well a huge branch came and shattered the windshield. He was able to drive it home..after he had to turn around from all the trees that were laying on the road. He ended up having to go the interstate after all.

4. My insurance refused to pay on anything for my windshield. Did I mention that I had just put a new windshield in the same car back in October?

5. We have been planning to go skiing for the first time in my life this weekend. I have so excited about it. Well as beautiful as the past two days were...it ruined our chances of skiing.

6. Lydia was exposed to Strep last week, that in itself is not a big deal, that is just a part of life...but I kept hoping her fever would start BEFORE we left for Cannan...but of course not. I am sure she is going to wake up in the middle of the night Friday with a fever. I had no idea that it take 10-14 days for a child to develop strep after being exposed.

7. Mark found two dead mouse/mole things down in our basement...YUCK. The only good thing about that was the kitties have been doing their jobs and they were dead. I am just glad the kitties did not put them in our bed. Thelma has been known to do this...ask Kathy and Dan.

8. My right arm and joints started hurting me again yesterday...since Thanksgiving, I have had shingles, gout and some sickness where I ran a fever for 5 days...I swear it feels like my shingles are back..the pain without the rash. They keep taking blood but nothing is showing up. I am about ready to be sent to the glue factory.

9. The wireless Internet has not been working at any of the schools. That means I cannot check my work email because I have it set up in Outlook on my laptop.

10. I bought the wrong size diapers on Tuesday. I took them back to Target on Thursday to exchange them and they would not let me. Now, after I had my baby shower, they let me exchange diapers for months....no receipt, nothing. But yesterday they wanted a receipt which of course Mark had. If I returned them without the receipt I would not get full credit.. for crying out loud, I just need the size 4's instead of the 5's!!!!

Thanks for letting me vent. Now,back to your regularly scheduled Lydia posts.

So

2009-02-11T09:13:00.001-05:00

This is how excited my daughter gets when Mickey is on the TV..

Can you imagine how she is going to react when she does get to see him for real in April !?!

Steelers Party

2009-02-09T09:40:00.003-05:00

Again with a house full of folks and the big game on..I did not get many pictures... but it was so much fun.

Here is Lydia with the parts of her ceiling and freezer box castle play house. After taking so much time I swore that I was leaving the decorations up until Mark and I's anniversary (they were my wedding colors after all) but when we got up on Sunday, most of it had fallen down. Lydia and the kitties loved playing around in the plastic.

Here are the these two cuddling in the Love Boat as Mark called it. Notice Lydia has on a "dress". She has to wear a dress everyday..so when she opened this nightgown she had to put it on immediately.

Here is Lydia blowing out her candles. She did much better this time around and blew them out herself!

Here are the cakes that my mom and I made. I asked Lydia if she wanted a princess cake or a steelers/football cake..and she chose a football cake.

Birthday Madness

2009-02-07T09:12:00.004-05:00

Ok so I did not get even half of the pictures that I wanted..I would have had no pictures at all on my camera if Miranda had not picked it up and took some. I was handling the kids and Daddy was using the video camera. But I know we had several folks out there that were taking pictures..I need pictures of Kaleb, Anisley, Andrew, and Karenna if folks out there have any..also any of the adults..We decided to not let the kids have all the fun and to dress up but I have no pictures of that either. Also a huge Thank You to everyones help, I would not have been able to do the party without you.

With that said..Welcome to the Royal Tea Party...

Here was the ceiling that Mark and I worked on for about 5 hours...don't ask. Here are the kids drinking their "tea". They did so great. I think they felt very grown up. They were very careful and none of my Fiestaware was broken and more importantly no kids got cut.

Here are the cupcakes that April made..yummy. Cupcakes were so much easier to deal with for the kids I think.

The icing was the favorite part I believe. There were also beautiful sugar cookies that Wendy had made. Here were the ones from last year. This year they were wonderful tiaras and shields...but I have no pictures of them.

We had kids of all ages and everyone seemed to have a really good time. We had different princesses also..

Cinderellas

Tinkerbelles

and Princess Annabelles!

You cannot forget that we had several knights there as well! Miranda made these wonderful shields..(Mir I swear we took pictures of these the night we made them but I cannot find any) and picked up some Burger King Crowns. We had a decorating station set up with crayons and foam stickers for the kids to decorate their shields of virtue and pictures of Sleeping Beauty dress.

Here was after long evening of fun.....the two best friends being silly, eating grapes.

The party went so well. All the kids played well with each other. A few needed a little time to warm up but we had no MAJOR meltdowns that I knew of. It was hard work but so worth it to see Lydia have so much fun with her friends.

Flashback Friday

2009-01-30T11:58:00.000-05:00