Now that Lily is out growing her naps, supper hour is my WITCHING HOUR!!

It's such a sin, she will ask to go to bed, anywhere between 3 and 5pm. Sometimes falling asleep on the floor or couch! But if I let her have a nap, anytime during the day, she stays awake at night till 11:30pm!

So I've been trying to come up with "distractions" for her so I can get supper made, and she won't loose control crying!!

Yesterday, my sister (thanks Cheryl) reminded me about "Goo". I haven't made it since I was teaching preschool, and the kids loved it!!
It is a mixture of Cornstarch and Water, adding just enough water to dissolve the cornstarch and make it into a "hard" liquid.

This is the coolest stuff, it hardens on the table, but turns to liquid in your hands. Just Bizarre!!
It is also very easy to clean, just scrap it into the garbage, and wipe the table with a wet cloth!

WHAT WAS I THINKING???

I bought the girls a wooden marble set for Christmas, I was thinking, that since their father is an engineer, they would all play together, making marvelous structures, at the same time, creating these little geniuses!!
Well, DUH!!! The Engineer Father is working all day, and the smartie pants sisters are at school, leaving ME, the structurally challenged mother, to build the darn thing!
It took me 2 HOURS, 1 pot of coffee, and a HUGE headache to build the darn thing.

Then I wouldn't let Lily play with it because it was so unsteady that if she touched it, it would topple over and I'd have to build it again!! NOOOOOOO!!
It managed to stay up, even with everyone playing with it for 2 days!! I was very proud!

Then my oldest daughter came home from school, and built a neat structure, without instructions, in under 15mins! ~Brat!~

Just my luck too, LILY loves this marble set, and wanted to play with it EVERYDAY!! So everyday I have to rebuild it!! WHAT WAS I THINKING????

I have to tell you about 2 funny things that happened this weekend!

Yesterday, while I was making my grocery list, I let Lily watch the movie, Hoodwinked, mainly because her older sisters wanted to watch it and I didn't think she would really pay any attention to it as she was playing.
So off we went to the grocery store, (always an event), Lily, had just finished playing trick or treat with the vegetables, (She would take a bag say "trick or treat", I would put broccoli into it, she would put the bag into the cart, and take another bag...and on and on it went...) Every vegetable was individually bagged!! The cashier just loved us!!
Well, we made it over to the meat, and as I was choosing a nice cut of roast beef, Lily was singing loudly, and talking up a storm! She suddenly started shouting, from the top of the shopping cart, "You'd the hor'd Granny!!!! You'd the hor'd"!!! (it sounded like "your the whore granny")!
I drop my roast, and start shouting beside her, "Use the hood Red!!!" No way she stuck to her mantra, over and over again!!! No matter how much I tried to change it! Obviously she watched just enough of the movie to catch a phrase, but not enough of the movie to get it right!! LOL
Even today, she still is saying it, she really thinks she is saying Use the Hood! Even when she repeats it after me, she still sounds like she's calling Granny one of the oldest professions in the world!

The other funny thing happened at supper tonight. Lily, from day 1 has always "stored" food in her mouth, something we know will pass and is very common in adoptive children. However she has recently started to "gorge" her food, I don't think she even notices, she just forgets to swallow been bites, we don't even notice until she suddenly starts to gag because her mouth is too full. When that happens, we get up slowly and calmly from the table, finger sweep about 1/2 the the food out, and she continues on with supper. It happens about twice every supper. So we've started to feed her ourselves so we can make sure she is eating enough and slowly enough and most importantly swallowing! (don't worry, she has a plate in front of her, with food cut up very small, we've never taken away food or restricted it. We know how important it is NOT to do this.) She will learn that there will always be food here for her. However, I digress..
Tonight, after one of these gag moments, and she was trying to spit a little mouthful of food into Frank's hand, he tried explaining to her that she needed to make the food go into her belly, "way down into your belly". Well, she looked at him, food hanging almost out of her mouth, pulled open her top, looked down at her belly, and spat it out!! It was now at her belly!!
I suppose Frank should of explained himself a bit better!! The rest of us at the table just about peed!

Never a dull moment around here!!!

Well, we FINALLY moved Lily from the crib to a toddler bed!

We've been going to move her for quite some time, but she loved her crib soo much and every time I would decide to move her, she would be squished in some weird way and I thought that if I changed her bed, she would fall out for sure!!




Well, I was wrong! She took to the "big girl" bed right away!!! She helped (and hindered) Daddy putting the bed together, and helped her sister make her bed, and thankfully hasn't fallen out (yet).

There is a little shelf in the headboard of the bed and she has put a play phone in there, often after everyone is in bed we can hear her "talking" on her phone! We have to take the phone away, tell the "person" that lily will call them back in the morning, and put the phone in the hallway. Everyday, she gets up and puts it back on the shelf! Soo funny!
She is giving us a peek into her teenage years!! oh oh
This is the coolest toddler bed ever. It is a Little Tykes Cozy Cottage bed, and the side of the bed looks like a picket fence, and the headboard is a "house with shutters". It was given to us about 8 years ago, used and in very rough condition, lots of stickers and crayon marks all over it. I took it completely apart outside, (it was summer) and scrubbed the snot out of it and it can back to life!! It looked brand new again and still does!

I am in SOOO much TROUBLE!!

These 4 kids of mine, (yes I include my husband in this group) have NO FEAR!

None, at all!! I think Lily might be the worst of them all, at least my two older girls have good judgment, but Lily and Frank....... nope, nada, zero, nilch!!

We went sliding the other day, and had a great time. No one complained about cold feet or hands! (well, I did, but I really hate the snow and cold)!!

The hill was peppered with children and parents, and when you took your turn, you had to yell, "LOOK OUT" and try to avoid those with slow reflexes! LOL
Every time Abigail and Isabelle went down the hill, they managed to avoid crashing into people,
every time Lily and Frank went down the hill (at full speed - I might add) they would come soo close to knocking down kids! Frank's arms waving wildly in the arm - shouting MOVE - MOVE- while Lily's arms waving wildly in the air - shouting FASTER - FASTER!! (no kidding)

At one point, at the top of the hill, Lily jumped onto one of those round sleds and took off down the hill on her own, followed by:
Abigail who saw it first, then me, screaming, then the kid who owned the sled (oh, didn't I mention that? She just took a random sled, for all we know she could of pushed the kid right off of it!) then followed by about 10 other kids all hoping to be "the hero" and save the baby!!
The "baby" was screaming at the would be rescuers to "LETMEGOOOO" fending them off with waving arms and legs! Abigail (who was the only rescuer not frightened of her) was finally able to stop her, only after being dragged on her belly the last 1/4 of the hill!
After we returned the sled, to the now crying kid, LMAO, we arranged it so the older girls would hold onto Lily (in her properly borrowed sled), and they would slide down beside her on their Krazy Karpets.

Yup, I'm in sooo much TROUBLE! Way over my head!!

Here's the 4 of them on one of their excursions.
Yes, they are standing, yes they are going very fast, and no, I didn't see them until half way down the hill!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

I finally have some time to sit down and get updating!

We spent Christmas at my dad's place, it was hard, 1st big holiday without mom, and the Christmas Eve marked the 2nd month of her death. sigh..
However, we had a good time, lots of food, lots of wine and still lots of smiles!