Easter and Misouri

Over Easter weekend we went down to Missouri to my Grandparent's house and it was way fun. Here is LC dying the Easter eggs:

I'm not sure how much time I'll have to post and I want to get some pictures up while I have my mom and dad's computer available to do it, so I'll just be putting lots of pictures with little detail and hopefully will be able to post some more info later.





Those were all from the Easter egg hunt we had on Saturday. My cousin who lives close to my Grandparent's came over and we had an egg hunt with all of our kids. It was fun.

I've been neglectful.

Life has been a little crazy the last little while and I haven't really posted anything for awhile. Both LC and Lilly are growing like crazy. Somedays I swear I blink and they are bigger or acting more grown up. Lilly is trying to talk now. She is trying to say Colista. It's so cute. LC is not a morning person and I hate waking her up in the morning because she is always crabby. So one day I just let Lilly wake her up and I guess she's been watchiing me, cause I'll sit next to her and say Colista, Colista, LC, etc as I'm waking her up. Well, Lilly basically climbed on top of her and said her little version of Colista. Pretty much a C sound and then TA, but it's cute and she knows what she's saying. (or trying to say I guess).

One of the reasons I haven't been posting as much, is I told myself that I was going to keep this blog upbeat and about happy things about me and the girls, and the last few weeks have had some difficulties in them. But just in the last little while, things are taking a turn for the better, my divorce is final, so no more dealing with the courts and paperwork and red tape, and I bought a car! I'm so excited. The airbag light wouldn't go off, so the dealer is getting that fixed and he'll call me when it's done. Hopefully Thursday will be when I get to take it home. It's a good day. Yay!

Valentine's Day and a few updates

I realized it's been awhile since I posted anything. Life has been a little crazy.

So, I'm sure not surprisingly, I wasn't looking forward to Valentine's Day this year, but it actually turned out really great. Friday night I had my dad's car and I knew that I needed to get valentines for LC to take to daycare on Monday, so we went to the store, and they had some good sales, so I got new valentines shirts for the girls, they looked way cute if I do say so myself. :) Then as we were getting ready to go check out, we walked by one of the card displays that they put in the middle of the isle and there was a card with Cinderella on and LC pulled it out and sings the enitre song "A Dream is A Wish Your Heart Makes" right there in the store to Cinderella. It was adorable. Then we get home and in front of our door there was a package. It was from the Friel aunts, uncles, and cousins with a letter in there from Grandma and Grandpa Friel as well. To any of you that read this, Thanks!! It was really sweet and the girls loved it. You did get sizes right on the clothes and I did get some pictures taken and I'll try to get them posted so you can see. And since there were clothes, LC had to immediatly try them on. (Anytime there are new clothes we have to try them on, she is all girl) Then Sunday since we had a box of 32 valentines for LC's daycare class of 6, I decided to take some for her to give to her nursery class too. I had her give them out herself and I told her to say Happy Valentines Day and she went up to everyone and just said Happy Valentines, it was cute. Then the girls had their daycare party on Monday and they had the babies "make" little frames and flower arrangements (fake) to give to their moms. And then Colista's class had a single flower (fake) and made "leaves" with two of her handprints glued together. It was really cute. However LC has decided that they are all her flowers and will get them down anytime she gets her eyes on them, and get really mad at me if I don't let her have them. So while not what traditionally comes to mind as a good Valentines Day, this year was great and I feel so blessed to have two such amazing girls in my life and that I get the opportunity to be their mom.

On a not so happy note, I took the girls back in for their follow up for their ear infections again and LCs ears still looked pretty bad, so we get to go see the specialist. We'll see if she wants to do tubes or what direction we're going, only time will tell. Lilly's ears looked clear when we went in except one of her ears had a lot of fluid that the doctor was worried would easily turn into an infection. Well last Wednesday (it was Monday we went to the doctor) I got a call from the daycare that she was acting like she had an ear infection, so she's on another medication and will have a follow up with the regular doctor and hopefully at least she will be done with all of this. I ready to be done with ear infections, I've decided we've had more than our fair share at our house and it's someone else's turn, but I guess life doesn't work like that, so we'll just keep working on getting the girls better.

One of the reasons life has been so busy lately is I took on being the teacher for a rs meeting that is going to be this week for quiet books and I wanted to get one all made so I knew what I was doing before I tried to teach someone else. I didn't realize how difficult crafts can be with little helpers. It's been interesting. I've adapted trying to do as much as I can after the girls go to bed because it's really so much easier. Well, I'm not quite there, but close finally, so hopefully I will at least be mostly finished on Thursday when the meeting is. So wish me luck on that one we'll see how it goes.

Toddler Speak

So LC is really getting very talkative and I decided that one of my favorite things is the little quirky things she says. I've decided to try to think of as many as I can.

• Paper toilet instead of toilet paper
• One of the characters from her favorite TV show Backyardigans is Uniquewa (not quite sure how to spell that one) and since she's understanding the whole me you context, she calls her MY-nequa
• Her favorite game lately is to call someone the wrong name and then tell you it's wrong. i.e. Mom you're not Grandma? Then if other people are there she cycles - Grandpa you're not Grandma?, Lilly you're not Grandma? and then finally Grandma you're Grandma? And it's always spoken like a question, but she giggles afterwords, so she's fully aware of what's going on.
• She feels it's very important to establish that I'm her Momma. When I pick her up from daycare, and when I drop her off sometimes too, she feels the need to make sure that whoever she is playing with at the moment knows that I'm her Momma, not theirs. She has decided that it's okay that I'm Lilly's momma too, so at least there's not that issue. i.e. Jordon, that's MY Momma! but not angry just informative and always excited
• With this being the first Christmas that she really understands enough to be really involved and whenever Santa was brought up, she would say at least Ho, Ho, Ho! and at least half of the time add on a Merry Christmas.
• She loves music and has gotten to the point that she can actually sing some songs, she can sing Twinkle, twinkle little star, the ABCS, and the Wheels on the bus without help and a good number of other songs, she knows parts of and will join in while you're singing. Oh she also knows A Dream is Wish Your Heart Makes from Cinderella fairly well and can almost sing it on her own.
• If she wants to be held or carried, she always says, Momma hold you. Or Momma carry you, meaning Momma carry me, but while she understands me and you fairly well, she hasn't completely connected it to this yet, but she has said it right once or twice, so I'm guessing it won't be long before this is obsolete.
• She finally is calling Lilly her sister, while it just used to be My Lilly. While I loved that too, there is something really endearing about her talking about her sister. Last night at bedtime she was mad at me because I was making her stop and go to bed and she needed her sister to help her feel better by giving her a love, but she wanted to hold on a whole lot longer than Lilly was interested in. Although Lilly was interested in it for a few minutes and for an eight month old baby, that's pretty good.
• Just in the last couple of days she figured out I missed you. My dad is still giving us rides to and from work and daycare. Last night when I picked them up from daycare, we went out to the car and she ran to Grandpa and said "I missed you Grandpa" and just wanted him to hold her. He told her he missed her too. Then it was the night my girls spend at my parents house and when they came home and I was putting them in bed, she gave me a big love and said "I missed you too Momma" (before I said I missed you)
• Pretty much without fail when I first put her in bed and am trying to get her to settle down and go to sleep, she'll have to go potty. Well a few times I've said, you better hustle, and told her to go. So now, after I tell her to go ahead and go to the potty, she stops, looks back at me and says, "I hustle."
• She will sometimes fake cry and I was getting really frustrated with it one day, so I started doing it with her. She looks at me and in a fake sad crying voice tells you "You Alright" and then I did the same to her and now it has turned into a game for her. Lately she's added telling me "I Sad"
• "Thank you so much"
• When she's on the potty and lets out a little gas, she say excuse my bum-bum and giggles

I'm sure there's so many more that I can't think of right now, and I really should get back to work, but one of the greatest things about how she talks is unless she's upset about something or really tired, everything is wonderful and exciting. She talks so dramatically, everything is just completely wonderful. Her attitude is infectious and keeps me happier and more positive as well.

LC vs Colista

I just realized that anyone reading this that isn't familar this would be confused. I believe that anyone that reads this will know, but better safe then sorry. My oldest daughter's name is Colista, but when she was a new baby I was living at my mom and dad's house and her name is Colista. Since it is such an unusual name, she had never really dealt with anyone else having her name, so she would always answer when we were talking to the baby. Well, to compensate we started calling her Little Colista, but it was quite a mouthful for such a little girl. Then one day my brother Joe just said why don't we call her LC for Little Colista and it kind of stuck. I tend to sometimes refer to her as Colista and sometimes as LC, so in case there was any confusion, LC and Colista and the same person, LC is just her nickname.

Trying to get back to normal

Well, I'm back at work for the first full week for the last little while due to the holidays. We had a really good Christmas despite the lack of sleep. We stayed over at my Mom and Dad's for Christmas so we could do Christmas morning together and then over New Year's we went to my sister's house in Michigan. Well, Colista apparently doesn't go to bed when we're not a home. Christmas Eve I didn't get to start doing Santa until 10:30 pm because it took her that long to go to sleep and being in a strange bed, I had to stay with her until she was really good and asleep. Then she didn't sleep well at my sister's house either. Good thing that we had a 4 hour drive home for her to get a good nap or she might have become a little terror. LC loved Christmas and had fun with everything, it was really fun to watch her. She helped Lilly open some presents and really just enjoyed everything. After all the craziness was done, apparently she needed to just have some calm as she took her barbie doll into the other room and was just sitting there on the floor. As most people know when you can't see a two year old and it's quiet, you tend to worry cause usually they're doing something they shouldn't be, so my dad went looking for her. Well he found he in the back room just sitting on the floor and when he asked her what she was doing, she told him "I'm sitting Grandpa."

We did fight sick again in between Christmas and New Years. Lilly got really sick and I ended up taking her into the doctor and she was having a severe reaction to the antibiotic she was one for her ear infection. She is doing much better now, so we're good now.

New Years we went to Michigan to my sister's house and it was a lot of fun. My sister has three boys and a girl and LC and Emma had so much fun together. Last night I was kind of prepping her that we were going back to daycare so hopefully we wouldn't have a really bad adjustment, and I was talking about her friends that were going to be there and she tells me "and my friend Emma". Emma is 5 and was really good and playing with her and taking care of her, it was fun to watch.

Now we get to try to get back into our regular routine and get used to normal life again. Wait what am I talking about, there's no such thing as normal. So I guess we'll get ready for the next crazy thing to happen and hoepfully be ready for it.

Merry Christmas everyone!! We had a very good Christmas we were over at my mom and dad's house. I will write more later, but I want to get some pictures up while I'm here on my mom and dad's computer that has the pictures I can upload.Little Miss Lilly as a reindeer. I tried to get LC to wear it for a picture, but she wasn't interested so I put it on Lilly and she cooperated for me.

Here's LC "making" our Gingerbread house. I use that term lightly as all she was interested in was eating the frosting and occasionally putting a candy on. It was still fun though.

This is Colista performing at her daycare holiday party. She loves to sing and was the most involved and excited of the kids her age. She did pretty well with the songs too. It was way fun.


Lilly with Santa. LC wouldn't go see him. We got closer than last year where she wouldn't even come into the room when she saw him there, so maybe next year we'll actually get a picture with Santa.
So this may have been one of my favorite moments this year. We got the stockings out to get ready to put them out for Santa and LC started to put them on like socks. It was so cute. Then she tried to get me to put my stocking on my foot. She didn't understand why I didn't want to put my "sock"on.

These are the dresses that my Grandma made for my girls. LC calls it her twirly dress.
Lilly on Christmas morning. She did pretty good. I only had to open the last few presents for her.

Colista Christmas morning. She was not interested in looking at the camera, there was too much other cool stuff to grab her attention.
LC wearing her new Christmas dress.

Well, I need to get home and get my girls to bed to start a new week tomorrow. I'll give some actual information soon, but here's some pictures finally.