Thursday, June 26, 2008

Honesty Hurts

I was wearing a new necklace a couple days ago and Madeline said,"Hey Mama, can I wear your old lady necklace?" I asked her why she would call it an old lady necklace and she said, "Because you're an old lady and it's your necklace."

Gee, thanks.

Three-year-olds can be brutally honest.

More later,
Lori

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

For All You Moms

You may have seen this before but it's worth checking out again. I think it's hilarious! Comedienne Anita Renfroe did a funny mom song to the tune of the William Tell Overture:

Monday, June 16, 2008

A Visit from Emma






My niece Emma came to visit this past week. She stayed with her godmother and Aunt, Karen, but also got to see Aunt Lori and Granny and Grandpa a lot. Madeline was Emma's little shadow and Zella loved playing with her too.


Unfortunately we got sick on Thursday so we didn't get to see her the last couple of days. But we're so glad she was able to come.


Emma and Madeline had a lot of fun putting on puppet shows at the library for Zella and I.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Happy Father's Day!



Happy Father's Day to my wonderful husband, Travis. He works very hard for his family so I can be a stay-at-home mother to our two beautiful kids.

The girls were very excited for Father's Day partly because we made cards and used lots of glitter. Because nothing is more appealing to a three year old than glitter!

Thanks, Travis for taking such good care of our family!

Love,

Friday, June 13, 2008

Trip to Grandma's House

A couple weeks ago I headed south for Zella's eye appointment and Trav's cousin Stephanie's wedding reception. Since I was there I stayed a few extra days and we had a lot of fun. We got to spend time with Grandma Stacey, cousin Katelyn (Carrie's daughter), Aunt Carrie and Aunt Kate, Grammy (Stacey's mom) Aunt Rick and Uncle Judy. We had a great time!

Stephanie looked beautiful and the reception was a lot of fun. The little girls had a great time dancing. They danced non-stop even before the music started!

The funniest part of the night was when Madeline went up to Steph (the bride) on the dance floor. As she lifted up Steph's wedding dress she said, "Hey! You have to move your feet to dance!" And then she danced a little jig. Pretty cute.






The beautiful bride, Steph, with Ashley and Kate






Here's Aunt Kate with two of her nieces: Katelyn and Madeline.


It's hard to believe they are only four months apart!


And I thought Madeline was a tall 3-year-old!





Grandma "Marker" and Zella







Carrie and Katelyn






Zella made a new friend, Keely (Ashley's daughter)




Grammy Norma with the happy couple






Dancing the night away!



We also got a chance to see my friend Jen and her daughters Haley and Addison for an afternoon. The girls had a lot of fun splashing in the kiddie pool. We saw my friend Heidi the next day for a little bit but unfortunately we didn't get to see her boys. Hopefully next time!






What a Long Week

We had a long and tiring week. We (and by we I mean Travis) spent quite a bit of time pumping 3 feet of water out of the crawl space in our basement. Luckily we only had a couple inches in the rest of the (unfinished) basement.

My laundry room is down there and lots of stuff (and by stuff I mean endless tubs of baby clothes, lots of baby related items and of course lots and lots of Trav's art supplies).

Side note: if you are married to an artist then you may know what I am talking about! The guy sees potential in everything and likes to keep random objects "just in case" he can make something with it someday.

Family came to the rescue once again! THANKS FAMILY! My mom helped us go through the stuff in the basement and get rid of quite a bit of it, Aunt Gayle, Uncle Louie, cousins Sarah and Kim watched the girls so we could work downstairs for five hours. We got a lot done and if the rain stays away we should be alright.


This photo is of our backyard after the first heavy rain. After the second day of heavy rain four of the landscaping timbers around our swingset were floating in the yard along with some mulch.

Part of our backyard looked like a swimming hole. Travis has been doing a lot of work in the yard and it was frustrating to see it in such disarray. But compared to all of the flooding in Cedar Rapids, Des Moines and elsewhere in Iowa we are LUCKY to be putting up with these minor inconveniences. Our prayers go out to those who are dealing with flooding.

We also spent part of last weekend in the basement listening to the tornado sirens go off. Scary! The girls didn't know what to think of sitting in a basement full of water. Travis was replacing the outside door to his art studio the sirens went off. It was a little stressful to have the door off the frame with high winds and a possible tornado headed our way. Everything was okay thankfully.

And now our little Madeline is sick. I took her to the doctor this morning and they're trying to figure out if it's a kidney infection or just a virus. They ran some tests and we'll find out tomorrow. Poor girl is not feeling well at all. She is napping as I type this (and Madeline has RARELY napped since she's been 18 months old) so I know she is really sick.

We were supposed to go to see Trav's family for his cousins wedding this weekend but can't go now that Madeline is sick. Bummer.

Enough of my randomness.
More later,

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Madeline Beatrice

Madeline had her three year pictures taken and they turned out great! It was hard to choose...





Zella Lynne

Zella was pretty tired during the photo session but we still got quite a few cute shots. She gets new glasses in a couple weeks and I will probably get some taken with her new specs too. I just couldn't resist these...





Say Cheese!

Last year for Father's Day I surprised Travis and had photos taken of the girls together. He loved them and so I thought I would do the same this year. But ssshhhhhhhhhhh! Travis doesn't know yet. (I can confidently say he does NOT read this blog and probably doesn't even remember the address of it. I think he avoids the blog to try to avoid how dorky I really am. But I digress...)


Here are the two photos of them together that I ordered:




To be honest, I wasn't sure I was going to get a good one of the two together. There were a lot of shots like this:









I think Madeline is considering running away in that last one! I think the pics turned out really well and the girls had a lot of fun. They love to wear matching clothes and I'm happy to oblige.

We're celebrating "Papa's Day" (the girls call Travis Papa) tomorrow since we'll be out of town next weekend. Happy early Father's Day to everyone!

Love,

Zella's Eyes


Zella had a four month check-up with her pediatric opthamologist Dr. Suh. Overall her appointment went really well. Her degree of eye turn improved with glasses. It was 5-8 at her last appointment and is now only 2-3 (with glasses). Without glasses her eye turn got worse, going from 10-15 to 20-30. Dr. Suh was happy with her progress and didn't find anything unusual. Her farsightedness did improve slightly and she is getting new glasses with a 10% weaker prescription.

She has accomodative (improved/fixed with glasses) infantile (since birth) esotropia (inward eye turn/cross-eye). Because her eye turn is greatly improved with glasses they will not perform surgery. We feel very lucky Zella has such excellent care!

It was hard to pick out new glasses because there are not a lot of options for such young kids. She is getting "comfort cables"...the bows curve all away around the ear which helps keep them on. I'm hoping it'll be an improvement over the dreaded strap that holds her glasses on right now. They're pink with outlines of rubber duckies. Pretty cute.

We get the new glasses in ten days and I will post pictures as soon as I can.