Getting ready to hunker down

I keep looking out the window to see if the snow has started. They have hyped this storm up quite a bit, and everyone has cancelled everything for the day. It is currently 4 pm and all we have is lots of rain. Which is a huge blessing. I'm not saying I think we won't get anything, but I'm not buying the 6-10 inches they have been claiming. I'll let you know if I end up eating my words. So far with the recent weather, I have missed one class, and my chemistry professor's morning class has missed one class so she had to push our test back one day. I'm ready to take it now and I am hoping that we don't miss any more class so it doesn't get pushed back anymore. I don't like starting new chapters before we test on the last material, but that is what she is doing while she tries to catch the other class up to us. 

   Today Miss Piper woke up in a good mood and we thought she was feeling fine. By the time we had got gas, and made it to Target, you could tell she didn't feel well. So we got the essentials and headed home. We  were home for less than 5 minutes before she threw up. She took a bath and has been sleeping most of the afternoon. We woke her up after her fever hit 104 and made her take some Tylenol. We had to bribe her, but she did take some. I am praying that it doesn't spread to everyone. Especially since they keep saying we are going to get hard and may be stuck in the house for a day or so. 

I enrolled the girls in summer Sonshine school and I got Gabi enrolled for next year. It seems so weird to me that Piper won't be going to Mother's Day Out anymore. I cannot believe she will be in Kindergarten. I know say this all the time, but really I don't know how Gabi is going to cope without her. Miss Gabi is such a pistol. Yesterday the girls were stamping and she would come running into the room saying, "Daddy! C'mon!" with such excitement that he couldn't say no. She would show him her picture, then she would show him her hands and say, "Look, Daddy. I made a mess!" She has also started telling us that things aren't fair. Really? At 2 1/2 she thinks things aren't fair? She is in for a rough road if she thinks things aren't fair right now!! She also likes to tell people, "NEVER!" Piper is the recipient of this one a lot, and Piper just tells her she is being silly. She also likes to tell us "I DON'T want IT!" If anything isn't going her way. 

Allisyn's teacher emailed me last week to tell me that she jumped from reading 43 words per minute to reading 73 words per minute! We are really proud of her! She loves reading to her sisters, and is reading more challenging things with minimal help. 

Piper has a love for dolphins. So Allisyn checked out a book from school about dolphins so Piper could enjoy it. Piper was so disappointed they had to turn it back in, we went to Barnes & Noble and got her a few dolphin books of her very own. She couldn't be more proud of those books. We also picked out a few new books for her sisters to enjoy while we were there. I love the way my girls always think of each other and try to do things to make each other happy. It makes me think that with God's help we must be doing something right with them!

Well Miss P is now waking up so I'm going to hang with her for a little bit to see if she needs anything. If you are in the line of this storm, be safe. One weather guy just said there is a "donught" over the city and it is keeping to snow away, but he expects it to come down within the next hour or so. We shall see!

I want a train your dragon!!

When we picked the girls up from my mom's this weekend Gabi was ready to go home right away. She had a great time, but she went out with Michael when he was taking stuff out and insisted on getting the car right then. She didn't feel that she needed to go back in and tell Mamaw and Katy bye. She was ready to go. She had both her Pooh and her Violet in her car seat with her. Violet is the Leap Frog dog that sings and talks and knows her favorite food, color, and animal. Well, maybe not her animal, but that changes frequently and I can't plug her into the computer every 5 minutes to keep her up to date. Right now Violet says that her favorite animal is a cat, and she meows. On the way Gabi was meowing along with her. So Allisyn kept asking her if her favorite animals was a cat. Gabi kept telling her no. First she said it was cow and had some mooing to go along with it. So Alli asked if her favorite animals was a cow. Gabi looked at me with a sneaky grin and said, "No, Alli! It's a sheep! Baaaa!" Then she started giggling it was pretty cute.

Then Piper pipes in and says, "My favorite animal is a train your dragon." She really likes the movie How to Train Your Dragon. She proceeded to tell us how she thinks they are beautiful, and how they can fly so high she could see the birds, and all her friends. She keeps telling me that she really wants one. The only way I can really respond to that is that I would, really like one too. I mean really, who wouldn't want a trained dragon? That would be pretty cool. She and I will keep dreaming about it.

Gabi was climbing on her play kitchen when we were putting her movie in yesterday. I asked her if she remembered what happened the last time she was doing that. She replied with a "yes!" I asked her what, she said, "I don't know." I reminded her that she fell off and got hurt, her precious little response, "Oh, okay. Thanks mom." Thankfully she didn't repeat that tonight, but I'm sure it will happen again.

Piper seems to going through a perpetual growth spurt. It's either that or she has her dad's metabolism which causes her to be constantly hungry. So last night when we were getting ready for bed, she came in and said, "Mom, you forgot to get me a snack. I know this because my tummy is still hungry!" I grinned at her and asked her what I was going to do with her. Her response: "Just love me forever. Is that a good answer?" I might of squeezed her a little too tight and told her it was the perfect answer.

Piper is also insistent on keeping her bedroom door shut. This results in her room being so cold that she doesn't like to get dressed in their. Michael started letting her change in Gabi's room, but Gabi has decided that she doesn't like it and kicks Piper out. No really, if she's in there she screams, "Get out, Piper!" Piper can play in there whenever she wants, but apparently the line is drawn at getting dressed in there. So I tell her to change in the bathroom which is actually warmer anyway. This morning she was getting dressed and her underwear was twisted and she was having a hard time getting them straightened out. I told her to tell them to quit being silly. She laughed and told me panties weren't human and they do not have ears to hear her tell them that.

Allisyn is still kind of working out of her less than wonderful stage of sassy and selfishness. Last night she wanted to get in the car first, but Piper was clearly there first and was in before Allisyn even moved out to the garage. She started whining about it, and my not so mom of the year response was, "Whaaa! You should have gotten your stuff together and gotten outside first." She got this look that only Allisyn can give and said, "I don't like it when you tell me Whaaa!" I did apologize, but also told her I didn't like it when she didn't do what she was told and whined about things not going her way because she didn't do what she was supposed to. She really wanted to say more, but she was smart and held it in.

Gabi still finds herself trying to hold onto being the baby. Yesterday she was wanting her daddy to carry her up the stairs when he went up. He told her that she was a big girl and she could do it herself. She cried out, "I not a big girl, I still a baby!" I'm not sure if he said something back to her, or if she just thought about it for a second but the next thing I heard was, "Okay, Gabi is a big girl."

So those who know me well, know that grace and coordination are not my greatest blessings. This morning I was standing on the stoop with Allisyn waiting for the bus. I told her I wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Don was a minute or two late this morning. She then told me, she was going to have a sub bus driver today and tomorrow. So I tell her to stand in the yard, so they would see her. Then she sees it not turn down our street. So we walk back inside to get ready to take her and we hear it. So we run out. It stops where the designated spot is, at the end of the street. Mr. Don stops right in front of our house. So Allisyn takes off running, and me without shoes on, runs out to the end of the yard to watch her get on the bus. So I'm standing in the yard, in the rain, barefoot, trying to protect my coffee from the rain with my lightweight jacket. I see her get on the bus, and turn to hurry back to the house and find a hole in the yard and I go down. Thankfully it wasn't too bad, my feet hurt more because they were frozen. I did manage to not spill my coffee during the whole ordeal.

Well, I should really be studying. Right now I'm sitting on campus watching the snow come down. It is so beautiful and distracting. Okay....off to study. Maybe.

We will be finding beads forever...

  So I have been MIA for the past two weeks. I think. Last week was big for me. I had two first tests. The first was on Wednesday in my Individual and Family Development through the Lifespan class. It's a nursing prerequisite. This is pretty much the same as Developmental Psychology with a little more emphasis on how nurses see things. It's not new material for me, but I was still a bit freaked about it because the instructor likes to remind us that they test harder in nursing school by giving multiple correct answers. You are responsible for choosing the MOST correct answer. I feel pretty good about the test. I should be able to run up and see my posted grade tomorrow.

   The second test was the dreaded first Chemistry test. I feel pretty confident about that one too. The little girls were pretty outstanding with letting me study. They didn't always want to be on board, but we didn't have any major issues. I did not get much studying done with all three of them home except for when Michael was awake to deal with them.

  I was thankful for the timing of the tests, because I was able to get both first tests out of the way for our church's annual marriage retreat. Michael and I have gone 4 out of the past 5 years and we are always blessed by getting to go. This year was no different. We came away with new tools to help our marriage and were blessed with some wonderful fellowship. We also got to have lunch with Michael's parents on the way home where they blessed us with a microwave since ours has been out since right before Christmas.

  The girls got to spend the weekend with Mamaw and Aunt Katy. They were all so excited and were looking forward to it the entire week ahead of time. On the way there Gabi and Pooh were singing and dancing about getting to spend the weekend with Mamaw and Katy. She was also the first one to give us our hugs and kisses good-bye. I'm not going to lie; it made me a bit sad. It was also a relief to know she was not going to be upset when we left.

   She is becoming such a big girl. She is totally in her big girl bed now. She has decided that she no longer wants to sit in her high chair. She wants to be at the table with the rest of the family. She is talking so much. I love the conversations she has with her sisters. It totally melts my heart the way they love and adore each other. The next big thing we will be working on with her is potty training. I keep telling myself, I'm not going to push it, but I think I might need to give her a little nudge to get her going. Allisyn is doing her best to try to get her interested, but so far she isn't buying into it.

   Allisyn is doing pretty well. She has been going through a particularly sassy and disrespectful phase, but I'm optimistic that we are coming through the end of it. Tonight she lost her 5th tooth. She lost it during Bible hour at church because she was messing with it the entire time. Tonight she also knocked an entire dish of pony beads into the floor. They of course went EVERYWHERE!! I'm positive we will be finding them under the couch and under the bookcases forever. The little girls immediately went to go help her pick them up. It was so sweet. Piper told her, "It is okay, Allisyn. I will help you clean up this silly mess."

   Allisyn's basketball season is over. She missed her last game because we were on the retreat, but we got to go to her team party to get her medal on Thursday. We feel blessed that she had such a great coach and hope Allisyn can be on her team again. I think if she can quit overthinking things and just play, she will be pretty good. Right now she tries to overanalyze what she is supposed to be doing, and it trips her up a bit.

   Piper has one more basketball game. We are kind of sad that if she wants to play again, she will have to find another coach because after they turn 5, the Y no longer offers co-ed basketball. Thankfully co-ed soccer lasts a while longer and she will be with the same team this spring.  She is the only one who is going to play this spring since Allisyn decided she doesn't like it being outside when it is cold. Piper's speech is also making some improvements. We still have a lot of work to do, but we love seeing her progress.


  We are doing pretty well on our FPU journey. Michael was able to pick up some OT and has put in the request for some more if it becomes available. It feels like we are both fully on board this time around. It's kind of fun to see progress being made.

  So this was a catch up blog, for those that like that kind of thing, I promise more funny stuff in the next one.