Free time, a thing of the past.

The only reason I find myself at the computer at this time (aside from the darn facebook addiction) is because I (we) have been laid up this week with the sickies and my dear husband has taken the girls to the beach for the evening, so I can rest! I'm seriously considering going to the ENT to see about the long time coming tonsil removal. The past few days have been miserable and my poor girls have been left to watch many "toony shows", as they call them, just so I can catch a quick wink. Other than that, all is well.....just BUSY!! For some reason, I thought that this fall was going to be my new lease on life with both girls in school on Monday and Wednesday mornings, but after all the driving to two separate schools(yes, I'm one of those forever driving moms!) it really only boils down to 2 hours of free time. What can you do in 2 hours?....unload the dishwasher, throw in a load of laundry, make a phone call, and drink a cup of coffee.... So, I'm letting go of the new lease on life visions and saving them for next year when the girls are actually at the same school and I'll have three mornings to myself without all the driving! And nap time is getting increasingly shorter, so there goes that break :)

We have settled into our "fall routine" nicely. Ella seems to love her new teacher and friends from school and I love the moms in the class, too. I was bummed to miss the brunch my friend had yesterday for all the moms in Ella's class to get to know each other, but tonight is the open house, so that will suffice. Ella makes having a preschooler seem so easy. She truly is the most caring, thoughtful, do-gooding little lady. When it comes to following directions, she just does what she is asked and loves to help out. (most of the time) Aside from giving Audrey a hard time, which is every moment that she's not in school, she is a really great phase. Ballet/tap on Tuesday mornings is a huge hit!! It is a half hour of ballet then a half hour of tap and she LOVES it! I drop her off and take Audrey to the playground across the street for 45 minutes, so it's some nice time for us too.
Audrey's adjustment to school, on the other hand, has been a little more difficult. But, she's a little more difficult. Not so easy going, not too tolerant of new people or tolerant of anyone telling her what to do, including myself or daddy. I probably make things worse b/c I seem to be over the top emotional when dropping her off, as she cries and clings to my arms. On Monday, I shut the door and started balling in the hallway (I think probably b/c I was getting sick :) The director asked about my concerns and I went off, or at least tried to while sobbing. I told her how I wished the teachers handled her differently, told her that I thought they needed more nurturing, blah, blah, blah,... and now I regret it. I totally let emotion get the best of me. Then I considered taking her out of the program b/c she doesn't have to go, but then said, get real, she's going to have to get used to it sometime and it's only 6 hours a week!!! So now that I'm completely embarrassed, we'll see how monday goes.


In other news.......


*Congratulations to Kady, Eric, Cal, and Ben who welcomed baby Seth into their world on Sept. 12! 6 lbs 11oz, healthy, happy, and precious!! Kady says they have settled well into life with 3, 3 and under and she's even getting 7 -8 hours of sleep each night! Go Seth!!

*Dan, Jennny, Jordie, and Spencer were here last weekend to celebrate Jordie's 4th birthday. We had a low key princess party complete with pinata, pin the princess in the castle, tiara making, and of course the princess birthday cake. You certainly do not need a million little kids running around like crazy to constitute a party. It was also Christina's bday next door, so we celebrated with them Saturday night.....with a little flip the cup.... I'll post the pics once I get them from Jenny.
*My dad has less than a handful of days until his official retirement!! What a change life will bring after doing dentistry since 1970. Yeah! We're excited that he'll have all the leave in the world now!!!
*Suzanne, Bridgett, and I started taking a Music Together class with the girls at this place called The Tot Spot, which is about 20 minutes away. I love that I got to experience this with Ella when she was a baby and I'm so excited to have this special time with Audrey and her friends. It's on friday mornings (while Ella is at school) and it is at a place where they have every toy imaginable and we make a morning of it. Here are some pics of the place when we went in August to sign up! The kids have a blast and the moms get to chat.

My law abiding lady.

The girls in the balls.

Giving kisses.

Audrey and Kate play babies.

T & E

* Dress up continues to be the most favorite activity around here. The imaginations run wild and I'm extremely impressed by Audrey's ability to "act", pretend she's a character and say the appropriate things. She loves to dance and show her stuff. Here are my fairies, Tink and Wink........That would be Wink as in Dr. Wink from Pinkalicious, the all time favorite book at the present moment.

* We haven't been to the pool or beach much lately. Until this week it had been soooooooo hot and I have been trying to stay out of the sun. Good news is that I used the Aldara creme on my basil cell carcinoma and after six weeks the new biopsy came back negative!!! Yeah, no surgery on my face :) The pics below were taken when we were swimming at Uncle Jon's pool a couple of weekends ago. Poor Audrey got the shaft this summer and was given floaties instead of swim lessons. She really isn't interested in going under water, so I gave in. It makes taking two to the pool easier knowing that she has her float on. There is always next summer! Ella won't sit still in the pool for a picture so here are two pics of her in action. First, perfecting her Berkoff's blast off, my little olympian and second, perfecting her freestyle stroke!

Do you like my side pony??

Future swim teamer.