Edie humming in the New Year !!!!

Daddy taught Edie how to play the harmonica!!!

My new diet plan for 2010

The Miracle Toddler Diet:

Day One
Breakfast: 1 Scrambled Egg, 1 piece of jelly toast. Take 2 bites of egg, using only your fingers, then see if the rest will stick to the ceiling. Take one bite of toast, then smear the jelly on your face, clothes, and white table cloth.
Lunch: Find crumbs on the kitchen floor and eat them. Find that lollipop you lost last week and finish it off.
Dinner: Drop pieces of spaghetti onto back of dog, insert meatball into ear. Dump pudding into apple juice and suck it up with a straw.

Day Two
Breakfast: 4 crayons, any color. 2 dimes, 3 nickels, and a penny. Wash it down with a squirt gun filled from the dog's dish.
Lunch: 2 bites of peanut butter and jelly sandwich, 3 jelly beans you found from last Easter. Dump milk on table, slurp up with your tongue.
Afternoon Snack: Lick an all-day sucker until it's sticky, drop it in the dirt, then continue licking until it's no longer dirty. Bring in the house and drop on the rug.
Dinner: Small bowl of ice cream, making sure you let the cat share the bowl with you, Handful of cheese puffs, and kool-aid. Be sure to spill the Kool-aid all over the freshly-washed white tablecloth.

Day Three
Breakfast: Stale toast found under couch, 3 sips of flat Coke.
Lunch: 1/4 tube of toothpaste (any flavor), handful of potato chips.
Dinner: Half a tube of lipstick (any color), handful of Purina Dog Chow. Ice cube if desired.

Repeat this menu as needed until you achieve desired results.

Follow this toddler diet, and you too, will be fit and trim like every toddler on the block!

Some new camera fun!!!

I'm having a great time not knowing how to use my new camera. It's fun but I definitely need a class or two ... it's the photographic lingo that gets me ... maybe a book like Digital Photography for Dummies. Hey, who you calling dumb?!?
This was one of my favorite gifts to get the girls for Christmas ... since they LOVE to bounce. They are a little frightened of it because as they bounce along they tend to fall of the back of it ... they don't like that!!! Not sure why!!!

I think I mentioned that this new hot camera could get nose hairs ... if any of us had nose hairs big enough to photograph. Another great thing about my husband ... no gross nose hairs!!! Well, here is Ella pointing out where her hairs would be...

Ella Grace aka Crazy Bang Lady ... I know, I know she needs another hair cut. Well, she did until I went crazy with the scissors tonight ... I don't think I botched it up too bad but we will see in the morning. She is humming out a little ditty on one of their harmonicas....

They both have learned to say CHEESE!!! Or what sounds like cheese anyway.....


A great picture of Edie with some computer photo enhancement ...I may have gone a little overboard with the "highlight" function but that's how blonde her hair looks in the sun. And speaking of her hair ... see those little horns ... yeah, she's earned those!!!

Edie doing a little posing with her shopping cart and Ella still playing the harmonica....

Ella AGAIN pointing out where her nose hairs would be.....the girl LOVES to pick her nose!!! She actually got a booger tonight and didn't know what to do with it......MOMMY TO THE RESCUE!!!

Rubi ... was my first subject!!!

And I caught Santa in the act.....

Still looking for the hidden camera!!!

Both Jon and I were so excited to see Edie and Ella's Christmas morning reaction. He had to work Christmas Eve night so we thought we would open our gifts then he could go to bed for a nap before heading over to our friends' house for dinner. Well all of these things happened BUT the process of making them all happen turned our Christmas morning/entire day into a friggin disaster ... leaving both of us wondering if we will ever do it again. Seriously folks we may just ban all things Christmas next year.....not really but trust me when I say it was bad. And if you find yourselves laughing through this post just remember that Santa is already watching ...again, I kid because I have been laughing (now that it's all over) ... I mean it's hard not to. Right?!?
So here goes......

I waited for Jon to get home from work before bringing the girls downstairs .... we both knew that (or thought we knew) they would be amazed by the under tree transformation. They notice every little change these days ..... they did not disappoint (yet!) Edie exclaimed "WOOOOOOOOOW" and Ella yelled something in her native tongue (if you have not heard her speak in her native tongue yet scroll down a ways to watch a video).....Jon decided he wanted video on the camcorder and of course we could not find any cd's. I planned to just use my camera for video .....that is if there were any good video to get ....and of course there was NOT!!! So once he finally scrounged up a disc we started with the opening of presents. Well they loved it at first then started getting cranky .. neither of them have been feeling really well with runny noses and all. Jon was overly tired because he had taken care of a really complicated patient the night before, one that kept him running ALL NIGHT!!! We got most of the gifts open ... except for my last one and one for the girls that still sits unopened under the tree. It was a disaster at this point and I can't even put my finger on why really .... it has just gone nuts!!!
Jon and I decided to not spend much money on ourselves and instead helped another family. Well as I opened my first two gifts I have to be honest and say I was thinking ......"Geez you don't have to spend much money to be thoughtful" ....I opened a box of Sham.Wow rags (yeah!!!) and a tea kettle which Jon has been dying for. So on top of all the chaos, I was feeling a little under appreciated. (Slightly selfish? Maybe! But seriously Sham.Wow?!?) ...so, the you know what hit the fan with the girls running mad and I didn't end up opening my last (MOST AWESOME) gift until later in the night. I am glad though in hind sight because I don't think I would have been able to get super excited about it like I did later. I do have go give honorable mention to the other cool gift I got though before I move on. A Bis.sell steam mop ... I used her last night and she ROCKS!!! I love that thing!!!
So please be aware that my portrayal of these next chain of events is sketchy .... it is sort of a blur because it all happened so quick .....and even though we all know that I love to be dramatic ....this has NOT, I repeat NOT been dramatized!!!
Jon went to bed.
I look into the kitchen and Edie is standing at the counter, on a chair that she pushed up, with my HOT coffee cup upside down. In my mind it was HOT but in reality it was only luke warm. Thankfully! But my reaction was based on a blazing hot cup full of coffee. I ran in and grabbed her and threw her off to the side (I didn't really throw her ...just quickly placed). I intended to check her for burns (even though she was not crying)(YET!) Instead I slipped in the coffee, knocked the chair over sending it flying across the kitchen floor.....right into my lower oven door. Which of course SHATTERED. And being the safety glass that it is.....shattered into a trillion tiny pieces!!! Sidenote: I am fine and Edie was not burned. So I had to run upstairs to get Jon to help me...he was so tired that he could probably have fallen asleep standing up but he didn't!!!
Here is what my beautiful oven looks like now .... even though it wasn't so beautiful before!!!

Then I put the girls down for a nap after all the cranky tiredness and the kitchen drama. While they rested I thought I should make the sweet potato casserole that we were to bring to the dinner. Of course garbage disposals and sweet potato peelings don't really get along. And I found out the hard way.

Out of desperation I turned to Dr. Google and found this AWESOME and easy repair ....and it WORKED. Jon tried to fix it and ran out of time because he had to go to work and the plumber was going to charge 200.00 PER HOUR to come out. I mean seriously !?! So some folks with the same issues on the internet recommended stopping up the clear side of the sink and plunging and wouldn't you know....it worked like a charm!!!
And that my dears is why we want a Christmas do-over!!!!
We did have a nice time (minus two little girls running on fumes and two spent parents trying to control their chaos) ... I regret not taking my camera to the dinner but .....well, you can imagine why I didn't!!!

And Rubi decided ......to hang it up!!


**** SEE BELOW FOR A RUNDOWN OF THE FUN STUFF ******

We had a nicely ridiculous Christmas.... story deserves a post of it's own so this one is for the good stuff!!! Santa was good to everyone here...we must have all been nice.... or Santa had his sights on other naughty folks when we weren't being so angelic!!! Christmas eve after the munchkins were tucked in Santa moved all the toys from his sleigh (aka our pool table) and placed them under the tree.....





Then when Jon came home from work Christmas morning we brought the girlies downstairs for Edie to exclaim "WOOOOW" ...and Ella to say something in Chinese or maybe it was Japanese .....only she knows!!!
Edie was super excited to see the baby doll stroller she had asked for ...

Ella preferred to ride her packages ...

Edie getting into the fun !!! They were both cranky (and so was daddy a little but he had been up all night) ...


Papa Jim and Yanming sent what ended up being their favorite gift for most of the morning ... baby dolls. They carried them around EVERYWHERE!!!



Edie could not choose which stroller she loved more ... so she fought Ella off and tried pushing them both.

When Edie tired of her hogging of the strollers Ella had her turn .....she couldn't decide which one she preferred either ...one was more fun to push .....

.....and the other more fun to sit in.

Edie really loved the wooden building blocks ... she stacks them up as high as she can get them and steps back jumping up and down yelling YAAY YAAAAAY!!!


Both girls loved their gifts from Aunt Kaye ...

Edie showing a little tutu love!!!

Ella likes to wear her tutu as a necklace!!!

Ella LOVES LOVES LOVES to have these wings on ... she throws them at me and backs up to sit in my lap so that I can put them on her...

Edie likes the butterfly antennae ...

Rubi joined in on the tutu fashion show...

Jon got a bunch of useful household stuff like a garage hose (which has a car detail kit ....my car really needed him to get that) and a pressure washer and a Bose system for his daytime sleep room, etc......
I got useful things as well .....like the tea kettle Jon has been dying to have and a box of shamwow rags!!!!

Then.....THEN!!!! I opened this beauty..........

Isn't she lovely!!!! Stay tuned for some awesome pics .....you can almost take pictures of nose hairs without blurring them with this baby!!!!

Christmas Shopping ......is NOT fun if it's not online!!!

We have had a bit of busyness going on around here!!! We hosted our third annual minus 2 years(because I was pregnant and had newborn twins for two years) .... but anyway ... for the unit I work in the hospital. The Cardiac Telemetry Unit!!! I love doing it and it always seems to turn out AWESOME!!! Thanks to the cash from the hospital and a couple of the doctors and my love of all things party planning!!!
It wasn't until yesterday after the party that I realized I had not bought a single gift for my children or my husband. I had list after list after list lined up but nothing tangible. So I had (begged) our sweet little babysitters Nicole and Jenna over and they watched the girls while I went out to buy presents and fight for my life .....nearly!!! It was only after my Christmas week shopping experience that I came up with a few rules that if we could all abide by would make this crunch time a bit more tolerable.
1) Crosswalks ..... are just that!!! Walk over to them and walk ACROSS them. Don't walk if you don't see white lines because that causes cars to stop every 2.5 seconds to let your selfish uncrosswalking self along.
2) If you are too fat (now we all know I am not skinny so please don't get offended) but I mean if you are so fat that it causes you to walk slow .... you especially need to use the crosswalk. There is almost nothing worse than waiting for someone to struggle along while they JAYWALK!!!
3) If you are in a wheelchair....then CROSSWHEEL!!! Just remember WHITE LINES are your friend!!!
4) If you are in the crosswalk ... I totally appreciate your effort ... But...BUT if you are texting it totally voids the entire effort because ....I mean seriously can't you wait for 2.5 seconds to reply to that stupid text. And, AND if you are pretend texting while in the crosswalk ...... IT AIN'T COOL.....so move on!!!
Now while in the store...
5) If you are browsing....COOL!!! Most of us who shop browse!!! But seriously .... BRING YOUR CART WITH YOU!!!!!!! Please, Please Please....don't leave it cross ways in the freaking aisle!!!!!!
6) When you see a friend.....of course GREET THEM!!! Hug them, kiss them, ask about their children.....but AGAIN take your stupid cart with YOU!!!!!!

7) And nothing to do with shoppers but a little lesson learned today ...... if you see some cool looking wrapping paper and think to yourself ......."wow 2.00 a roll what a steal" .......just know IT IS a steal. They are stealing from you......it is CRAP!!!

I love Christmas.....really I do!!!

Now onto the cuteness and fun stuff !!!
So I did not get many good pictures from our Christmas party even though I made sure to have the space and batteries on my camera....it's a TON of work to be a good hostess!!! I simply forgot to take pictures while everything still looked pretty. But I did get some and here are a few.
When we had our Alabama baby shower Jon's sisters had this awesome pink feather tree ... so I decided to us it with my Christmas decorations this year ...... my semi theme was trees and wreaths so it was perfect

Here are all the presents for Edie, Ella and Jon so far......you can imagine my issues with placing packages under a tree on the same level as 2 toddlers......so another job for the pool table!!! It really has come in handy!!!

So some randomness from the party .... some girls.....and me somehow seeming to feel up my friend Sara!!!

Here is Dr. Korver ... our beloved heart surgeon .... he contributed much of the money that I was able to use to make the party even better!!!

Sara and Rob ..... now Sara was my preceptor when I was a new RN and she ROCKS!!! I love working with her!!! And her husband is no eye sore either!!!

Randomness.....

Our managers husband......

Our manager there in the red .....with her thumbs up ..... I don't think she was dancing ??!!

Just party fun.....


Here is how my husband prepares for a party .....those who know him GASP!!!!

Looks good.....

Tastes good.....

Feels good....so Edie and Ella got the most adorable little dolls from their aunts Jennifer and Alice!!! OMG ....they are so cute. I am so glad to know now why Amber has ignored me .....hahahahha!!! I can't remember how to link but if you look at my blogroll and see Lovell Family Updates and/or let me know ....she may be able to hook you up!!! They are Alabama Crimson Tide themed (of course) and so stinking cute and you really canNOT tell they are handmade ... other than the fact that I am telling you they are!!! GOOD JOB AMBER......they are so GREAT!!!

Ella loves brownie bites....but who doesn't right !?!

Here is my downstairs "guest" bathroom ...... sort of decorated......never mind the streaks ....you can't tell in real life!!!

Ella Grace ....sweet cup hugger, finger sucker and short toesy girl!!!

Edie ....CUTE

Edie says ......"who says Desitin is just for booties"

A little sisterly sharing of the raisins.....