Daisy and her Dad

This is what I came home to the other night.  We have a hard time with getting Daisy to sleep at night.  Some times she will go to bed with no problem.  And then there are the nights when she screams.  Ben didn't want to listen to her scream so he got her up and just held her.

He's a good dad.  
Daisy had her first wagon ride last week.  She's seems too little to ride in a wagon all by herself but she did just fine.  She loved it.

How White Trash is This??

Look at it and laugh, folks.  I have reached a new level of trashiness.  Now, when I was young I vowed that my kids would NEVER wear princess dresses.  Never.  But that ended when my parents bought Heidi her first Cinderella dress and it was down hill from there.  The problem with it is that they LOVE wearing princess dresses.  Below you will see Kaylee, who is entering the princess stage in full swing.  She loves being Cinderella and this is her favorite dress, even though it is ripped at the bottom, the silver lining along the neck line just hangs anywhere, and the material that lays over the skirt has ripped out leaving just blue strips.  And if it hadn't been for my sister sending a decent tiara she would still be wearing the plastic yellow Ariel crown that Heidi got out of a McDonalds Happy Meal.

This is what she wants to wear for her birthday.  I keep thinking, "I can't let her wear that at her party!  She needs a new dress!"  But then I remember that a new dress will cost $20 and that none of her 3 yr old friends are going to remember this and that I am the only one that will care...she doesn't care.  She thinks that she looks beautiful.  But the worst part is the shoes.
Yes, those are sparkly pink shoes.  I had to buy Heidi some new shoes and Kaylee has been asking for sparkly shoes forever.  She saw them and fell in love.  She tried them and they fit (usually I can get out of it by saying they don't have the right size).  So, I bought them.  I used my discretionary present fund and bought these shoes for her.  I just couldn't tell her no. (This will one day serve as proof that I bought Kaylee something just for her that she wanted.  Proof that I love her just as much as the first, that I spoiled her, and that we did special stuff together with just the two of us.)
Now I am in a quandary.  I never wanted my girls to look like this but they love it.  I don't know if I should insist that they quit wearing tattered old dresses and just wear regular clothes all day long or if I let them be an aspiring princess.  I feel so white trash and it is so white trash.  Where do you cross the line from letting them discover themselves, be individual, choose who they want to be to saying "I'm sorry but you look ugly and I will not allow you to wear that"?  I just don't know.  

Movie Monday

Every monday the Redbox company will send out a code to get a free movie.  You have to go to their site and sign up for it.   Every Monday me and the girls head to walmart, enter the code, and get a free movie.  I usually let the girls pick one they want to watch and then I get one for myself.  The girls think it is great because they get to watch movie like Tinkerbell and Ariel's Beginning that we don't have (and I will NEVER buy them).  Last week Kaylee picked out Farm Kids-so dumb!  But, it was free so I don't care.  Anyway, that is a way to get a free movie and to make your monday and little more fun.

I watched Stranger Than Fiction the other day and I just love that movie.  I don't know why but it just makes me feel good about myself.  I started to compile my list of Favorite Feel Good movies.  Here are my top five and then I would love to hear your top five.  I am going to count down to save the best for last!

5. Stranger Than Fiction-It is just funny.  And I love how the narrator made the watch a character in her book.

4. The Truman Show-I am not sure why I love this show so much but every time I watch it I enjoy it.  I don't own this one so I don't get to see it often but I love it every time I watch it.  

3. The Last Holiday-Not only does this movie make me feel good but it also makes me want to cook better.  Cook and not worry about the fat content but just enjoy the process and enjoy the food.  

2. Hairspray-I laughed the whole way through this movie the first time I saw it.  How funny that this chubby girl doesn't let anything stop her.  She is so confident in herself!  Plus the music is great and I have a crush on Zac Efron (my girls love this movie and Kaylee has started saying that her prince is Link)

1. The First Wives Club-One of my absolute favorite movies.  I love that these women who lost themselves in a bad relationship finally see that they are worth more than how their husbands treat them.  It is a very feminist movie which is funny because I don't believe much in the stereotypical feminist movement.  After I watch this show I feel more empowered, more assertive and more independent.  Love it.  OK, now your turn.  What are your favorite feel good movies??

I just don't know what to do

Kaylee will be three next month and already I feel overwhelmed, confused, and even helpless as I try to figure her out.  I just don't know what is going to work with her.  Every night I pray that I will know how to parent her because I just have no clue.  Everything is a battle and every time I think, "this is a way to teach her...this will help her understand" it TOTALLY backfires.  Today the girls pulled out all the toys.  Toys were everywhere and in every room.  I didn't care as long as they cleaned them up.  That was when it began.  I don't know how long I repeated "clean up.  We have to clean up the toys" before I realized it just wasn't going to work.  Finally I set the timer.  The timer rule is that whatever toys are not cleaned by the time the beeper goes off will be packed up and put in the shed for a week.  This actually helps my girls to pick up the pace.  Another trick that helps Kaylee is to tell her she is racing.  By the time the 15 mins were up there were only a few things left; noah's ark, some magnet clothes, a ball and a stuffed panda.  I stuck to the rule.  I showed the girls each thing that was being packed so they would know I meant what I said.  Heidi (who did 90% of the work) sat there crying as I packed up her panda.  Kaylee was jumping saying, "I winned!  I winned!  I winned!"  Nothing gets through to her.  Nothing.

More of Daisy playing

These were from last night.  She just sat there while we watched The Office.  Now that she can sit up she is a very happy baby.  Totally content to play with her toys.  I know I made a lot of small post today but I did that just for my brother.  He complained that it too too long to scroll to the bottom of my blog to see the videos.  Now it shouldn't take as long and I will be putting some videos of Daisy on in a bit.  They are just her playing-nothing great-but I love them.

Playing with the girls

I love watching Daisy play.  I don't know why but I could sit and watch her play all day long.  She is just so cute sitting there grabbing things.  She is completely happy when she is surrounded by toys that she can pick up, examine, and then hit the floor with.

Too Cute!!!
Sometimes I can't get enough of this baby.  She is so fun to have.  I just love having her!

Daisy's Serious face

Daisy has started with this new face.  She does it whenever she is thinking something through.  For example, when a stranger talks to her, trying to get a smile, she will sit there and look at them like this for a long time, deciding whether or not to smile.  Sometimes she will and sometimes she won't.  It is fun watching her think it all through though.

Since everyone else was posting about their wonderful weather I thought I would make a post about that as well.  Tuesday it snowed for 3 hours.  On Thursday we went to the park.  It was beautiful!  This was Daisy's first trip to the park as a big girl.

She pretty much just sat there while I played with the other girls.  She did get to play hide-and-seek with us but the rest of the time she just sat there.

Daisy watching the snow.

We woke up to snow, not much, but still snow.  There ended up being a pretty good layer by the end of the snow.  But really this post is because Daisy was so cute about the snow.  She couldn't go outside so she sat and watched from the back door.

I tried to get her to smile at me but she just wanted to watch the girls play outside. She is so fun to have.

Fancy Nancy Pictures

These are just a few shots in anticipation of my Fancy Nancy video which will be coming shortly.  We read Fancy Nancy at Costco the other day and I loved it.  I ended up buying one for my girls and one for each of the nieces.  I decided to read the Fancy Nancy book and post it online so my nieces can read the book along with me and hopefully they will know I care about them even though we are on the other side of the country. 

This is Heidi's latest picture pose-tilts her head, lifts her one shoulder and gives a weird smile.  This picture made me realize she might be too old for pigtails.
Daisy got dressed up for the Fancy Nancy books as well.  Aunt Kaylee sent the girls some feather boas (perfect for the fancy nancy books!)
I looked goofy-I know-but this is the start of the Fancy Nancy video.  If anyone knows me they know that I am NOT fancy in anyway.  I wear a t-shirt and jeans almost everyday.  So I had to do my best to look fancy.  I put my hair into curlers last night so I would have curly hair like Nancy.  Has anyone slept with curlers before?  It is horrible.  I didn't sleep well at all last night.
I dressed up in most flowery dress (which sadly is a maternity dress)  I wanted to wear purple since it is Nancy's favorite color but I don't own anything purple.  If it hadn't been for my sister sending the boas and my friend loaning me a scarf I would have been totally plain (like always).
OK, I just wanted to show you how crazy my hair was from the curlers.  It was crazy!  Kaylee woke up and couldn't stop staring at me.  Heidi just started laughing.  The more I tried to tame it down the bigger it got.  I would have taken a shower but we have early morning church and I was running out of time.  Once I got my hair permed in the 3rd grade and I remember seeing my shadow on the ground.  I had a huge head in the shadow because my hair was so poofy.  That is what happened again today.  I permed my hair a few years ago and I really like it permed but the curlers were out of control!

Party and Piercing

When we do birthday parties I only let my girls pick 4 people.  She picked her friends from her old SUnbeam class.  I like to keep the parties small, especially since we are in the house.  It was a good thing we didn't have more people.  It felt packed enough with the few kids we had.  We got some balloons to give those who came but the kids ended up playing with the balloons, running through the house the whole time.  I have not figured out how to plan a party and activities and have it all run smoothly.  No one ever seems interested in the games.  Or, there will be two kids really interested and the rest are off doing who knows what!

Heidi wanted a blue and white cake.  At first I thought it was a wreck but it turned out cute in the end.  

We went out for dinner at Heidi's favorite BBQ restuarant, Pig N Whistle.  I don't know why she likes it because she orders a cheese quesadilla and then only eats the french fries.  
Of course I have to put in a cute picture of Daisy.  She had a fever but was still able to give a quick smile.
Here is the ear piercing!  The before:
Making the mark.
Here is comes....
And the after.  
She picked a daisy flower earring but the lady put in the wrong one.  She put in some huge earring and had to pull it out and then shoot her ear again.  She was actually doing pretty good with the crying until the lady had to pull it out and do it again.  There is a video below if you want to watch.  She likes them, though.  Kaylee didn't want to watch and has NO desire to ever get her ears pierced.  Oh yeah, I was going to let Heidi pick out some earrings for later.  She was looking and said, "I know which ones I want" and picks out huge silver loop earrings that were probably as big as her ears!  We didn't buy them.

Birthday Breakfast

She is officially 5!!  I decorated last night so this morning she woke to streamers around the house and flowers on the table.  All she wanted was cereal but I got her a muffin to make it a little more special.  Turned out she didn't even want the muffin-weird.  Who doesn't like muffins?

We opened her gifts from her grandparents this morning.  She is already wearing her new tuesday socks and rain boots.
Now we just have to get ready for her party and then get her ears pierced.  We will definitely get a video of that to put on the blog!

The Sunday Afternoon Nap

The best part about early morning church is the afternoon nap.  We come home from church at 12, eat a quick lunch and then head to bed.  Ben and I each pick one of the girls to cuddle with and they go out like a light.  These last two weeks have been wonderful!!

I love that you can't see their faces.  Heidi is slowly growing out of the princess dress up stage but Kaylee is now entering it in full swing.  She doesn't want t go anywhere because that she means she would have to change out of her clothes.  This morning she asked if she could wear Snow White to church (part of me thinks it would be funny if she showed up in that just to see what people would say...don't worry though, I wouldn't do that.)  Those shoes are Heidi's.  They are sparkly and Kaylee always wants to wear them.  I think Kaylee may get some sparkly shoes of her own next month for her birthday.

Heidi's birthday is on Tuesday.  She will be five and I can hardly wait!!  I don't know who is more excited for her birthday, me or her.  I love birthdays and want to make the day special for each of my girls.  I am planning that on your birthday you will get a special breakfast of your choice, with a special plate and flowers.  I love getting flowers and my girls love flowers, too.  This is going to be tradition that we have of flowers on your birthday.  Even when they are married and 30 I will still send them flowers for their birthday.  They will also get to pick a restaurant of choice for dinner that night.  When they are married and 30 I will send them a gift certificate to go out to dinner on.

 Heidi's birthday present this year is getting her ears pierced (she has been asking for this for about 8 months).  So on Tuesday when Ben gets home we will head out to dinner and then head to the mall for Heidi to pick out her earrings.  I can't wait to see how that goes.  She is going to be scared to death when she sees that gun thing coming at her.  I am so excited.  I will keep you posted!

Daisy's Celebrity Match

I always see people using their pictures to see which celebrity they look like.  I figured out Daisy's while watching a movie.  We got Daisy the Dumbo movie for her Christmas present and how appropriate since she looks JUST LIKE Dumbo!!

These were the best Dumbo pictures I could find but I think you will be able to see the resemblance.  The big blue eyes, bald head, big forehead, chubby cheeks, cute smile.  And then there is the fact that her head is perfectly round like Dumbo's.  I figured it out during the scene where Dumbo is first dropped off with his mom.  All of Dumbo's expressions are Daisy's.  It was weird but I've always liked Dumbo so I don't mind.

She is missing the big eyes and large nose but everything else seems to match.