Our little girl is a little wedding happy lately.  And when we were in the Disney Store and she saw a princess "wedding set" with a headpiece and a flower boquet she was in heaven.  But Mommy said no.  I did promise though that I would make her one.  And today I did.  She watched the whole process in awe and in anticipation of her headpiece.  Of course as I was almost finished she pointed out that she'd like a bouquet too.  I calmly explained that I had planned to make one all along.  So now she is in wedding bliss.

I don't know what has created the overall fascination with weddings (she likes to draw pictures of mommy and daddy getting married lately too), but she does look pretty cute.  And I see many hours of dress up in her future.

Well, the weather people were right - we got snow!  Then again between them changing the amount all the time, someone had to be right.  At least at some point.  No matter as after all the hype of snow, it was nice for it to finally happen this time.  Our little girl has been so eager for snow and has been let down this year.  So last night when it started to flurry about an hour  before bed we let her go out and catch flurries on her tongue and enjoy it.  My fear was without it, that would be all the snow we'd get and she'd be so disappointed.  Again.  So she went out for about 10 min and enjoyed it and then was content to go and put on her pj's and proceed to bed.

This morning when I heard sleet on the windows I knew she was in her bed peeking out her window.  I didn't have to hear her to know.  And as soon as I got up she wanted to go play in it.  To which I replied can I please verify that the birthday party you were scheduled to attend is indeed cancelled first?  She wasn't even content that long with that answer, but I did want to verify.  The girls parents cancelled prior to the place cancelling, which was nice as they didn't say they were closed until after we'd have left the house to be there on time.  But I do feel bad that the birthday girl has to delay.  Hopefully she is enjoying the snow!

So I was not surprised when our little girl volunteered to go out and get the newspaper.  She was ready to go in her pj's without a coat or shoes!  Uh, sure honey you can get it, but let's first put on shoes and a coat as snow is cold.  Sigh.  But she did comply and then ventured out for the paper.

And there was a part of me that was glad to let her get it.  :-)

Then later we got all bundled up and we all went out to play.  Little man threw caution to the wind and took off running in it and promptly fell into the snow.  He recovered nicely, but was not impressed with how cold it was.  I was told that the look on his face was priceless, but I wasn't yet outside to see it.  See mommy had to get herself ready after getting them bundled and out the door.

They enjoyed just walking around checking it all out.

And then there was some jumping in it

and some kicking of it

and some all around good fun.

They even tried to get the snow off of my car.

But as soon as daddy said he was going inside, little man agreed.

I guess he had enough fun in the snow and was starting to get cold cause you sure can't get him inside easily in nice weather.

But she had other plans.  She wanted to keep playing.  And make that snow angel she's been dreaming of.  But when it came time to make it she was concerned that she'd get snow on her coat, hat, etc.  Gotta love it.  So I assured her that was just fine and she set off to make her snow angel.

She was so cute, but couldn't open her eyes while doing it because she didn't like the little pellets of ice falling from the sky.  Ahhhh what fun in the snow!

Ok, so last Thursday was little man's official 2 year check up.  His weighed in at 30.5 lbs and is 34.5 inches long.  And he absolutely won his pediatrician over with his verbal skills.  She was amazed at how far he has come since his surgery.  And he was an absolut angel waiting for her to come in, reading a Cars and an Elmo book.  So she saw quickly how talkative he can be.

And the best news came the following day.  His peanut allergy has decreased!  He still has an allergy, so we obviously aren't going to be feeding him peanuts and they still want us to keep an epi pen just in case, but it does look like something he will outgrow.  Sweet!  His egg white allergy also decreased, but still remains, though just barely.  So looks like this one will be outgrown too.  And the soy allergy is gone!  And the most interesting news of all - he has a fairly high allergy to seasame seeds.  They didn't test for that last time, but that may be the mystery food that has broken him out a time or two.  So no seasame seeds it is. 

And there was no post this past weekend as I caught something that has had me dizzy beyond belief.  It hit me HARD on Sunday and so I didn't do anything.  Just ask my sweet husband who got to do all the wash, remake the beds, and take care of the kids.  I am feeling better, but I am still not back to 100%.  At least now I have spells where I feel normal.  Just wish I could time them sometimes, but some is better than none. 

So the sad fact is that I am doing my first post without pictures.  Because that's just how  bad I've been feeling.  Here's to hoping that this weekend is better than last!

Today our little man is 2!  Happy Birthday!

At breakfast he discovered the decorations were up.

And he was excited as he could be - exclaming "Mickey Mouse!" all the way!  And of course there was the Clubhouse

and even two little goodie bags.

Even his sister declared "I love you birthday boy!"  So sweet.

Then after nap there was a Mickey Mouse cake made by Mommy.

Which he was more interested in than last year, but still only ate a bite or two.  He really isn't very into cake.  Or most sweets for that matter.

But he did eat some

and of course she had some too.  She wanted a whole ear, but settled with sharing one with him.

And it left Mickey looking a little lopsided.

But we helped even him out by eating the other ear.  :-)  Though I did learn that while the icing was to die for white, it was meh with the black food coloring in it.  So I'll have to think hard about how I do any future cakes based on that.  But cream cheese icing on a yellow cake - wonderful!

Then of course there were presents. 

And naturally he had an assistant.

Well, I guess he actually had 3 assistants as he wanted all of his toys opened right away.  So that was our job.  :-)

He was very excited with all of his presents.  And enjoyed hearing all of the cards - adding "the end" at the each of them like they were short stories. 

And then it was time to play with all of them.  Including a new hockey set we got for him.  Oh, boy.  He loves hockey, I'm just hoping he can keep his hockey stick under control.

And for dinner Daddy is making his favorite - angel hair pasta with homemade marinara sauce.  Yummy!

Wow, it is hard to believe that our baby is almost 2.  As in he will be tomorrow.  Wow!  Doesn't seem like that long ago I was bringing him home from the hospital making our little family complete. 

So, tomorrow we will celebrate on his special day.  Wish me luck tonight as I decorate his Mickey cake!

In honor of his special day, here are some random facts about our sweet boy:

*He loves to play toys whether it is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, blocks, Mr. Potato head, "Queen" cars, you name it.  The boy enjoys playing!  And trust me when I say he can get every single toy out in the play room.  But it is hard to get upset when he will actual play with each toy as he gets it out.

*He is into knowing every character's name.  He has learned all the characters on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, in the movie Cars, on Seasame St (though he doesn't watch it), etc.  If he sees a character somewhere he wants to know their name.  He loves to do this in a store, in a book, etc. 

*If he isn't ready for bed he will very politely tell you "No, I play (or playing) ______."  Fill in any toy there.

*He can count to ten.  The catch is he will not do it if you ask.  He has never liked to "perform on demand."  But if he is playing hide and seek with his sister, when it is his turn to count he will count to ten and then say ready or not here I come. 

*He loves ketchup.  He has dipped many foods in it that I do not think should ever go in ketchup.  But it has it's upside.  Last night he had "nuggets" with ketchup.  (Just don't tell him it was really breaded fish fillets.  Nuggets are good, but apparently fish isn't.)

*He will sit on the potty now before bath time.  However, that is the extent of his potty training.  I see a long road ahead of us with this.  And no we aren't really trying just yet as I think it would be close to pointless - I just want him to be able to sit on it without crying for now.

*He had surgery at just 18 months old.  He had his adenoids and tonsils out and tubes put in his ears.  While the recovery from surgery was rough, it has had a dramatic impact on his life.  He has not had a single ear or sinus infection since.  Yeah!  And even though he technically passed a hearing test before surgery (with noted reduction in vibration), we can tell that he can hear better now.  And with it his verbal skills have improved exponentially since recovery.

*He can say milk, but usually will ask instead for his Bob-Bob cup as his milk is almost always in a Spongebob cup. 

*As noted in the last post he firmly believes that anything his sister does, he believes he can do too.

*He is typically a very polite boy that always says thank you.  Please doesn't come quite as naturally, but is definitely part of his vocabulary.

*He is generally not a fan of change.  For instance he will typically not eat a new food the first time it is introduced, but once it is "familiar" it is ok. 

I could keep going on and on, but you get the idea. 

In my last post I talked about sibling rivalry and this one is related.  Sometimes these two can turn anything into a competition.  I think that is partially why our little man was so determined to walk so early.  She was already walking and so he had to as well.  I was hoping he'd take the opposite approach in that since he had someone to bring him anything his little heart desired he'd stay put - ha!  And so it has grown from there.  Anything that she can do, he feels he can do too!

For Christmas each child got a bouncy ball (from different people, but it worked out perfectly).  Hers is a larger princess one (perfect for our little princess).  His is a smaller superhero one.  And since it was so cold here recently I let them use them in the house.  She immediately went to bouncing in place to bouncing around the circle (our downstairs has a circular path through it). 

So of course he wanted to take off on his.  It took a little help, but by golly he was right there behind her.  (He was much harder to photograph!  Just ignore that they aren't all in focus - it was the best I could do at the time.  He doesn't allow for time to get everything right and I guess I'm just not quick enough.)

And it wasn't always as graceful as she was...

but besides a little bit of frustration it was all good!  Once he gets better control it will be all good and then I sure hope the weather is good cause I'm not sure I could handle two super bouncers in the house.  But they are good for burning up some of that endless supply of energy they have!

Before we had kids I had heard as part of a joke that the only way to avoid sibling rivalry was to not have more than one kid (or maybe it was kids at all, lol).  Little did I know how true that is and how early the competition starts.  Kids seem to get a sense of "fair" very early on.  Our kids are no exception.  Sometimes fair is easy to determine and sometimes it isn't so clear cut.  But the most interesting thing is how my kids don't just point out what is fair when they think they are the one being slighted.  Oh, no - they will call you on it for their sibling too (or at least both of ours have).  This says to me that what is going on in their mind is more than "just looking out for themselves."  

For instance our daughter knew at her brother's first birthday what was normal for a birthday at our house and made sure that I had everything for him.  Cute and interesting.  I guess she felt he didn't know what to expect and felt it was her place to make sure everything was as it should be.  Fast forward a year and she wanted to pick his birthday theme.  We said no, he gets to pick his own now that he's older like you did/do.  And when asked if she thought it would be fair for him to pick out her theme, she said sure.  He can pick princesses for me.  Not exactly girl - his pick means he could pick anything.  Thing is he probably would pick princess or something she'd like (he already has a sense of her preferences), but no we didn't go with her suggestion of a King Triton birthday (can we say difficult and why not at least stick with Flouder?) - we let him pick and he chose Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

He looks out for her too.  He will make sure that she has a toy (usually her favorite too) if they start playing something and he gets into it first.  And if she should happen to finish breakfast before he gets downstairs to eat in the morning he is truly worried that she is missing breakfast.  (Trust me buddy we feed her too!)

The problem is fair isn't something that is clear cut.  They both know it isn't fair for one of them to have a snack and the other not.  Oh, no!  The funny thing is that they don't even have to like what the other has and they want some.  Every time she shares a grapefruit with me, he has to have a segment of it too.  It does not matter that he has ZERO interest in actually eating it.  That is completely beside the point - he wants some too (and secretly I hope sometime he might give it another chance).  

This gets interesting sometimes because he has food allergies and she does not.  And explaining to a 1 year old (now almost 2, but this isn't new) that he cannot eat something because it will make him sick - HA!  If you can, you are better than I!  He simply sees a food that you aren't sharing and firmly believes that isn't fair.  And I agree.  So she cannot eat foods he cannot eat when he is around.  Most of the time this is pretty easy to maintain.  But you see we do leave the house.  :-)  So when we are visiting other people they are not as informed and it can get tricky.  Well meaning people have offered both of them foods that he cannot have.  Fortunately most know to ask and we've been able to intercept potential problems (you'd be amazed what might contain peanuts).  And we have been lucky in that the most common person that this happens with can always come up with an acceptable alternate for him.  In fact once discovering his love for cornbread our sweet neighbor is so kind as to bring some over (for both of them) whenever she makes some.  (And for a full disclosure she has spoiled us parents too with food a time or two!  :-)  I so love having her as a neighbor!).  

But again it isn't always easy to make things fair - in my eyes or theirs.  They are different genders and ages, which means they aren't always into the same things.  And they do have different preferences for foods, activities, etc.  So we try to navigate the best we know how.  And don't do anything stupid like only have one yogurt cup in the house.  :-)  (But even that  can be split in two!)

(You have to understand that yogurt is a big deal around here most nights.  Here they are happily eating some each with their own cup because I firmly believe pictures are a necessity.)

So how do other's handle this situation?  I imagine the dynamics are a little different with twins or with larger age gaps.  And as they get older they can understand a little bit better, which I would think has to help.  But how do you make sure holidays, birthdays, etc are equal?  How do you handle after school activities when they're older?  Equal number?  I know the cost differences can vary quite a bit, so do you take that into account?  If so, how?  If you have experiences, tips, whatever I'd love to hear your input.  I figure I have many years ahead of me with sibling rivalry or at least the potential for and can use the help from those that have been there, done that.  If you don't want to post as a comment you can email me at mkmiller94 AT gmail dot com.  

Our daughter is growing up.  So much so that it was time for her to move up from a toddler bed to a "big girl" bed.  Still hard to believe - sigh.  So last weekend we went and picked out her new mattress set to put with her big girl bed frame (her crib converts to a full size bed). 

So first up meant that little man moved from a crib to the toddler bed.  I must admit I feared the worst.  He hadn't been handling bed times very well lately and I was worried that we were going to make it worse.  However, instead it seems to have fixed those issues.  He now happily goes to bed for nap and at bed.  Oh, wow my baby isn't much of a baby anymore. 

So for a few nights she slept on her crib mattress on the floor in her room (with the frame for her new bed on the floor and the headboard and footboard leaned up against the wall) with her furniture rearraned to make room for the larger bed.  the irony of it all is that it made our big girl look tiny in her new bed and made him look bigger.  Oh, persceptions were messing with me.  Anyway...

So on Tuesday her new mattress was delivered and her new bed set up.  On that same day when I went to pick her up from school she did NOT want to come home.  I got there just as they were going to go play outside (brrrr!) and she was NOT happy about it.  So I pulled her aside and quietly said "you know what your daddy told me?  He said that your new bed was delivered."  Well, she got so excited and hugged me as tears of happiness streamed down her face.  I was stunned.  I have (and no one to my knowledge has) never seen her so happy she cried.  Her teacher had no idea what I'd told her, but was stunned by her quick change of moods.  So yes, we went straight home to check out her bed.  To say she was excited is an understatement.  She was very eager to help me put her new sheets on her bed with her new comfortor etc.  And that night she was ready for bed early - hmmm... wonder why?  :-) 

Here is her new bed.

And I didn't notice until after the picture that we had knocked her Pooh picture putting on the bedskirt on the bed.  So now it hangs straight.  But I was too lazy to go take another one.  :-)

Here is her bed after she put her animals on it.  She wanted more, but I stopped her.  Her logic was that now she had more room on the bed for all of her stuffed animals.  I suggested that we keep some on top of her bookshelves.  Though I'm not sure she was convinced cause I see more finding there was onto her bed.

Oh, so also said she was "sleepy."  Ha!

When you have kids you are bound to have surprises.  It seems that all the time they do something that you didn't expect.  This morning when I awoke I knew that both children were awake.  However, I did not expect to find both children in the crib.  Considering she knows that she is to stay in her room and play quietly (and has been doing so over break) I was a tad surprised.  Guessing that she couldn't figure out how to get out though as she knew when she saw me that she was busted.

Or how about yesterday when my sweet little boy discovered that he could open his curtains and play with the blinds when he woke up from nap without leaving his crib.  Kind of a feat since his curtains are really blackout liners that velcro closed.  Sigh.  Not sure how to keep him from doing that short of putting his crib in the middle of the room.  So hoping the joy of his new found "toy" won't last long.

Some things are pretty predictable though.  Like our little man telling me he wants to "play Mickey Mouse Club-house" or "play Queen cars" when I say naptime.  Oh, and those "Queen" cars need GPS tracking devices or at least a remote that causes them to beep as we are always on the hunt for his Queen cars. 

It is also predictable if there is music on that our daughter will be singing and dancing.  That is a given.  It also seems to be a given lately that both, yes both darlings will ask you to turn up the radio in the car.  We used to allow it for a special song, but I guess in their mind they are all favorites. 

Christmas fell into the fairly predictable category for these two.  Our daughter received many gifts that were "just what she always wanted!"  And based on how she's played with them, I'd say there was something to that.  But it was still entertaining as she said that with some toys she had never seen before.  Very fun to watch.

He on the other hand was a little overwhelmed and was finished on Christmas morning before he ran out of presents.  And he wanted everything opened right away.  It really is cruel that they put kids toys in packaging that could survive just about any kind of mass destruction intact.  Makes it hard for an almost 2 yr old to understand that you are trying, but no you can't open it quicker.  So he was known to play with a truck in the packaging until it could be freed. 

Wow - I can't believe how close he is to turning 2.  He's picked out a Mickey theme for his "party."  Or as he'd say "Mickey Mouse Club-house."  So it looks like I'll be making a Mickey Mouse cake for him.  Shouldn't be too hard as it is similar to last year's monkey face.  I like simple!

But back to Christmas.  Here are some of the last photos I have to share (since I don't share those with family member's on her except in rare occassions).  There will be a few more in the photo gallery.

Doesn't this just scream - who me?  He thinks it is lots of fun to get the lens cap to my camera.

We got her some accessories for Christmas and as she opened them she was putting them on.  So you'll notice that in some of the pictures she is sporting this hair do.  She did it herself as you can see.

Here he is with some of his new treasures.

And here she is with some of hers...

Introducing the one, the only Rockstar Jamnar!

And back to herself...

Here they are in a rare photo of both of them together and still - mesmerized by the video of themselves that Daddy made as a gift.

And I'll leave you with these two pictures.  Let's just say that the stroller was not designed for him, but that didn't stop these two (though we did shortly after these before he broke it).

Wow can you really believe that it is 2010?  Time sure seems to fly by for us lately. 

A new year is a typical time to take a look at yourself and make a resolution for the new year.  Losing weight is a popular choice as is evident by specials on weight loss equipment and such right now.  I myself typically try not to make a resolution.  But I have decided that I am going to work on my patience (or recent lack there of).  Not necessarily as a resolution, but it is something I am working to do better on.  See before kids it was hard enough to be a patient person.  I was always told that patience was a virtue and well, I seem to lack that virtue.  Then we had a little girl.  No problem.  In a lot of ways it actually made me a more patient person.  Who knew?  Then we had a little boy too.  Hmm....  where did that patience go?  I think it took a vacation and it needs to return.  See two children can either be the sweetest thing together or the complete opposite.  And it seems when things arenn't going well in other areas that they tend toward the latter.  So I'm working on how I handle it and hopefully that patience I once posessed will return.  Now if only I could add resolutions for my children.  I'm thinking my sweet daughter finally learning volume control of her voice and not throwing tantrums for my son.  If only it worked that way. 

I have no fabulous new year's picture of the kiddos.  See they went to bed at their normal time, so I guess you could say they celebrated early.  Perfect if you ask me.  So instead here are some more photos of Christmas.

I caught a quick one of them with their daddy.  Unfortunately I have no idea why the photo was overexposed.  For some reason though I didn't have time to figure it out and try again.

Here they are with visions of Santa Claus dancing in their heads.  Or at least in hers, I'm not sure he got the whole idea just yet.

And now leaving food for Santa's reindeer... (it took a little bit, but he warmed up to the idea - and I got a head full of reindeer food to show for it)

Then then went inside got pj's on, opened one present each, left milk and cookies for Santa, and it was off to bed.