Poor Lucy rarely gets the attention she needs. Surely, putting a
heart around her neck and forcing her to stay still long enough
to take a picture is exactly what she had in mind. Happy V-Day!

These are Annie’s Valentines’s that she handed out at school today…heart-shaped lollies
with adorable covers. I’ve had that stamp set since Annie was a wee one, and I couldn’t
wait to get the chance to finally use them for this exact purpose. The best part is that
she’ll be in a new school next year (all different kids). We’re so doing this again in 2009

Last night Mimi took a huge step and tinkled a teensy bit on the big potty. We were out for dinner, and I was taking Annie to the potty. Mimi declared that she, too, had to go potty. Of course, I was willing to let her have a go at it. She and I were very excited about her accomplishment. However, today she’s not as gung ho about doing it again. Maybe I need to take her to another public restroom. I’ll keep you posted. On a different note, Mimi and Annie received princess dresses from Grandma Indiana for Christmas. If we are at home, then Mimi is in her Snow “Whipe” dress, high heels, “princess” necklace (which is just an elastic headband with a barrette clipped to it), and “veil” (which is just another elastic headband with a bandana tucked into it). Each morning I’m greeted by her request to close up her dress in back with the velcro squares. It’s really very darling! And, yet another quick gem about Mimi. She LOVES her baby cradle. It has to be where ever she is in the house. If Mimi is in the living room, then baby is in her cradle in the living room. When it’s naptime, then baby has to sleep in her cradle in the room with Mimi. Many times Mike or I have tripped over it when it’s placed in odd spot such as the doorway to our bedroom, in the bathroom, or in the middle of the kitchen. Mimi has even demanded that we take it along with us on car rides. That’s where I have to put my foot down. I mean, seriously, would Mimi hold that big thing in her lap?!? Too cute! Boy, that was a great $20 spent on an eBay purchase.

>Like I said before, I was planning on giving updates on past events. Let’s see, the last update was on Christmas, so that brings me to Annie’s Christmas program at school. Each class had a theme and dressed up and sang a song to go with that theme. Annie’s class had the Nativity as their theme, and Annie was an angel (a very sweet one, I might add). The program took place in the church’s chapel, and I was surprised to see how many parents/relatives ended up coming to watch. The pastor from the church was the guitarist and also sang along for each song. All the kids from the school sang a few songs together and then broke up into their class groups. I videotaped most of the show with my handy, dandy point and shoot. I realized about halfway through that I didn’t need to document the classes other than Annie’s. So right as I finishing up videotaping Annie’s class the battery went dead in the camera. If I had continued filming everything before, then I wouldn’t have been able to capture Annie singing with her classmates. Sorry, but I’m not going to post any of the videos because I want to respect that parents of the other children in the videos may not want their children posted on my website:( Annie was awfully cute though singing her little hear out. Have I mentioned before how much she loves to sing? A lot. Like several times a day. And she makes Mike and I get tickets to watch her “shows”.

I know, I know, I’m guilty of not updating daily with all our past happenings like I said I would do. It’s so typical of me, huh? I’m only 4 days late, and weekends don’t really counts as days, do they? Without further ado, I’ve posted below about our Christmas and Grandma Indiana’s visit.

This was the first Christmas where both the girls understood the concept of Santa, presents, the tree, lights on people’s houses, etc. It was so fun to watch their excitement and the build-up toward the big day. Of course, we had advent calendars to count down to the 25th. One was specific in counting down from 25 to 1, but Annie couldn’t understand and got very upset stating that “Miss Sarah says it’s December Xth.” How could we argue with that, so we counted up to 25.

On Christmas day both the girls ran in to wake us up. Even though we had told the girls the night before to get us first before peeking in the Christmas room, Annie was already aware of some of the items Santa left for them. Sneaky kid! The girls were thrilled to open presents. However, once Mimi received her new baby she was no longer interested in anything else. We actually had to force her to open presents. The girls seemed to receive everything they ever dreamed of, and Mike and I were happy to see their excitement.

Grandma Indiana arrived on the 21st to spend the week with us. The girls were very excited to see her again, and quickly warmed up to her. Annie immediately talked her ear off and asked a zillion questions. We spent a few days of shopping and just hanging out together. Grandma accompanied us to a Christmas Eve party and got to meet a few of Mike’s endo classmates and their families. On Christmas Day, we had ourselves a feast with a turkey and all the traditional side dishes. It was delicious. That evening we went to the National Cathedral to see/hear an organ performance. The day after Christmas us girls headed over to Montgomery Mall to take advantage of the numerous sales. The girls were pleased to tag along because they each got a princess dress on sale…Snow White and the Little Mermaid. Those dresses have been on their little bodies every single day since. When it was time for Grandma to leave, everyone promised to write lots of letters and call often. Annie declared on the way home from the airport that she was going to write a letter to Grandma everyday. Unfortunately, Annie is much like me and tends to not follow through with suh tasks. We have written once since though. It was so nice to spend Christmas with Grandma this year.

How was your Christmas? I’m sure it’s long from your mind since it was about 2 weeks ago…ha, ha. Head on over to the memories page to see more pictures from the big day under “Xmas 2007“. Enjoy!

November was quite the month for us. The Sunday before Thanksgiving was spent in the hospital due to Annie having an asthma flare-up. A cold/virus caused her to cough so violently that it made her unable to breath. Along with a fever and racing heart-rate, we decided it would be wise to take Annie to the emergency room. The doctor had her do 2 breathing treatments and prescribed some steroids, and by day 2 following the doctor Annie was back to her old self. Of course, Annie’s illness kept her home which made it difficult to get the house ready to host Thanksgiving dinner for 12+ people. All went well though…just a little extra stress added to an already stressful time. Hey, make sure to take a peek at the latest of the girls’ albums–“>November 2007.

As promised, I’m giving daily updates on our past few weeks. Today’s post is about New Year’s Eve which was spent at the Guises’ home. It was fun to get to hang out with friends while the kids ran wild around the house. We had lots o’ meat (courtesy of us) and lip smacking, sugary treats. The Guise, Park, and VanNess families were all in great spirits which made for a rockin’ evening. Of course, we didn’t stay on to ring in the New Year. We got home and the girls were in bed by 11:00 p.m. Mike and I thought we’d be able to stay up for that last hour, but we were defeated by sleep on our comfy couches. We dragged ourselves to bed after waking up around 3:00 a.m. Good times!