A Winter Day

After church last Sunday, we came home and took some quick photos with the girls in our Sunday best. It was super cold and we had on winter clothes, which is hard to imagine now that it's 75 degrees outside! Can you believe it's February? I'll have to add my 'spring' pictures soon...but I'll save that for another day. Enjoy!

PS - Sophie is in the den telling her baby dolls to go to timeout right now. I keep hearing 'No ma'am! Go timeout! Go timeout right now!' lol

Me and my girls.
Mommy and Audrey snuggling.

Sophie posing for the camera...a little model in the making.There is that model pout. She practices a lot.

Benoit and Audrey being quite adorable together.

Woo Hoo! Sophie's Two!

How do I suddenly have a two year old? It seems like just yesterday I found out I was pregnant for the first time and now here I am with two precious little girls. What a blessing. I thought Sophie would enjoy a Winter Carnival with her friends and so a theme was born. Snowman invitations, blue/white/silver everywhere, and tons of 'carni' games to boot. We had a snowball toss, photo booth, hockey shootout, guess how many gummy bears, go fish, tattoo parlor, penguin pickup, and polar bear knock down. Everyone got tickets and a goodie bag to collect all their hard earned prizes, also winter themed. I think all the kids had a blast and I know Sophie enjoyed the party. She especially enjoyed her cake...we've been hearing about cupcakes all week long! She has definitely formed an association between birthday and cupcakes, I assume from preschool. And she's always pandering for one. But she is the birthday girl, after all, so why not.

~

Though she will not likely remember this party, I hope she remembers that she has friends who care about her and parents who are proud of her and love her endlessly. She's an amazing little girl full of feisty fire, sweet snuggles, and great giggles. How much fun to watch her grow up!

Front door sign...super cute!Sophie's birthday plate!Getting ready for the cake - she seemed to know just what to do.Yum! She really liked her cake.Family picture - it was a great day!Sophie playing at the 'photo booth' with her friend, Levi.Enjoying the 'hockey shoot out' game.

The Day That Wouldn't End

Three a.m. That's 30 minutes before the alarm...Audrey wakes up with a dirty diaper and hungry, Sophie wakes up with a dirty diaper and ready to play. Quickly get ready and in the car by 3:45a.m. and on our way to Toronto, 15 min before we planned to leave. Maybe this trip will be relatively smooth. Rookie thinking.

Sophie's awake until 5:45a.m. in the car. Audrey sleeps or plays quietly all the way to Toronto. Sophie takes a 2 hour nap and then plays calmly in the backseat. So far, going ok. But don't get ahead of yourself.

Arrive at Sheraton to drop off rental car. Called ahead for taxi to drop us directly at our terminal instead of the shuttle drop to save some time. Very smart. Feed Audrey in Sheraton lobby and get lots of looks. PS - Breastfeeding women don't want to talk to you about how fast your kids grew up. No time to change Sophie, only Audrey. So Sophie goes to the airport in her pajamas. At least they are cute. But she has crazy hair and won't let me touch it. We look like hillbillies all day.

Get to airport and check in. But only 1 child is listed so we have to go from Air Canada counter to United to pay tax for additional child. Thirty minutes later we get ticket from Air Canada. But large bag 55 lbs = $75 fee. Try three times to get under 52 lbs to avoid fee. Success. Get to customs to discover ridiculously huge line. Have 1 hour until flight and line will take at least 50 minutes. Against all odds, the kids are reasonably happy. But Benoit and I are not.

Make it to bag drop off and security line with 10 minutes to spare. Have to toss my fraise and bluet syrup I bought as my souvenir. Was really looking forward to using it on waffles from my new waffle maker Santa brought me. Now I'm running (or at least jogging) with 2 girls in a double stroller and a really heavy diaper bag. Pass a lady who exclaims "Look at that girl's hair!". Hillbillies we are. Make it to gate, which is the last gate down the terminal and get in line behind 4 people. We're the last ones on the plane. But we made it!

Flight is not bad, relatively empty and we got four seats to ourselves. Girls do really well and we make it to Dallas just fine. Even get to split a chicken wrap and pringles for $10. Then we discover that although we made our flight, our luggage did not. No biggie since we are coming home. Except that the car seats didn't make it either.

No Air Canada baggage claim desk. No Air Canada ticket agents upstairs. Only an 800 number, which is not helpful at all. They say to come back to the airport for the 9pm flight from Toronto (which Benoit is doing right now) to get our bags. Desperate and stressed, we head to the parking spot. On the shuttle, Benoit asks another mom what she would do in our situation. How do you take two kids home with no car seat? She and her husband suggest buying one for Audrey and just strapping Sophie in and driving slow. But after a few minutes, she offers to let us borrow an extra car seat they have in their car. Amazing. We take them up on this incredible offer and use the borrowed seat for Audrey. We put Sophie in the backseat with me and just strapped her in as if she were a big kid. Don't judge. We feel terrible about doing it, but had very few options at this point. She pitched a royal fit and it took all I could muster to keep her in her seat. She fell asleep about 5 minutes after we left...she had not slept since her short nap that morning. Try to call Luigi's to order a pizza and have the number programmed in my phone incorrectly. Give up and use 411.

Wake Sophie to come inside to eat. She explodes into a tantrum. Can't blame her because I know she's tired, but could really use a break at this point. Audrey is a peach, so that's nice. Eat in near silence...only Dora singing in the background. Bathtime begins only to find that Benoit had turned down the water heater to conserve energy while we were away (I'm sure that saved us $5) and there is no hot water for baths. After 3 rounds of boiling water on the stove and 2 pitchers from the microwave, we have a bath warm enough for the girls. Everyone is finally off to bed and the house is quiet. Benoit is off to pick up the luggage. I had hoped for a bath but that's not in the cards for tonight. So, I'm about to settle in with a Blue Moon winter ale (worth a try if you're looking for something new) and I'll call it a day. Maybe tomorrow will be a better one.

Rock a bye baby

I HAD to rock both my babies to sleep last night. For me, that's not necessarily a good thing. We have our girls accustomed to going to bed on their own after a book, a prayer, and some one-on-one time with either mom or dad. But we are not the parents who plan to sit and patiently rock their kids to sleep every night. I would much rather them be able to fall asleep alone without my help. Plus, I really want/need my quiet time. Trust me, I'm a better mom because of it.

Anyway, last night Sophie decided to play in her room until 10:30pm, at which time Benoit was already in bed and I was ready to call it a night too. I went to bed and could just hear her quietly playing but was too worried about something happening while I slept to let her just play by herself all night. So I carried her to the couch and we snuggled until she fell asleep. Then 20 minutes after I put her in bed, Audrey starts stirring. She just got her first tooth in and the next one is on its way too, so she's right in the middle of teething, which is disturbing her sleep. This time, I made Benoit get up because I didn't want to feed her and I was worried that she would want me to if I was the one who came in. We ended up feeding her anyway, but she only had a little to drink. So I gave her some Tylenol and drops for her teeth, then rocked her for 20 minutes until she fell asleep. By midnight, I was in bed and ready for some rest...until my 3am nighttime fiesta with Audrey. Yes, we're still feeding in the middle of the night but that's another story.

Although it took a while to get to bed and was certainly frustrating along the way, its rewarding to be able to comfort both my girls and help them get the sleep they need. It's easy to forget to soak in the sweet moments when they are wrapped around rotten ones, but I'm trying to focus on the good parts of parenting. And last night was tough....but I choose to remember holding my sweet babies.

Sweet things

This weekend, we took a familial stroll in Grapevine to look at the Christmas lights and decorations. Sophie was scared of the big, plastic Santa and wouldn't go near him! Here is Benoit posing with Santa...my silly, sweet hubby!

Benoit and Sophie strolling down Main Street in Grapevine.

I went to wake up Sophie from her nap today and couldn't resist a few adorable shots. She looks so sweet and peaceful and I don't want to forget these little moments as she grows up. Sigh.

Where's the soap?

When I was a little girl, our teachers would wash our mouth out with soap if you said anything inappropriate at school. Nowadays, I'm sure you'd be sued for millions. But I digress. Sophie has started saying some peculiar things lately. She somehow adds an 'n' to Santa to make him Satan. And when asking to watch one of her fave tv shows, Max and Rudy, she asks for "Max and Booty!". And best of all, we watched the How the Grinch Stole Christmas the other night and now she's always talking about the "B**ch that Stole Christmas!" She says he 'bumped his head', which sounds a lot like "what the hell?" if you don't speak Sophie. Benoit and I have been cracking up, as I imagine you are too. :)

Christmas Cheer

I'm skipping Thanksgiving on my blog and diving right in to Christmas. I am way too lazy for that. Let's start with Sophie's Christmas party at her preschool. For each holiday, parents volunteer to throw a mini-party. This usually includes cupcakes and a holiday themed craft. Before age 2, Sophie understands that party=cake and she gets so excited because she doesn't eat a lot of sweets at home. For days afterwards, I get repeated requests for 'cake', 'me cake', Sophie cake', etc. Cute until about the 400th time I've heard it. But here is my girl with one of her teachers enjoying her precious cake.

A picture of me and my girls at the Christmas party. I was lucky enough to get at least one of them looking in the general direction of the camera!

Sophie is very proud of her Christmas tree. This is my secret weapon for keeping her out of my Christmas tree as she is allowed to play with her ornaments, not mine.

My handsome Brittany, Cody, for his Christmas photo.On Sunday, we went to Frisco Safety Town to meet Santa and tour the miniature town filled with holiday games, balloons, etc. It was super cold, so the girls are all bundled up. We had a great time and I think Sophie really enjoyed seeing all the Christmas lights and hearing the music. She loves to point out all the reindeer, snowmen, and Santa decorations. For the big moment with Santa, she was pretty brave and sat on his lap willingly. She was stunned into silence, though, and didn't say a word until we left the room. Audrey, on the other hand, was all smiles and was grabbing his beard!

Sophie and Benoit riding in Santa's sleigh.

Audrey keeping warm. Isn't she squeezable!

Sophie was proud of her gingerbread man tattoo and balloon!