Cherish Every Moment

This morning, my mother-in-law and I took Caitlin to this massive garden about 30 minutes from my house, to see all of the spring daffodils before they died off. This is almost every picture I took of Caitlin:

Some ladies asked me at one point if she was running away, and I said, 'No. She's just running.' Because that is ALL. SHE. DOES. 

EVER. 

This afternoon, Brigid facetimed me (in the kitchen) from her playroom (which is JUST DOWN THE HALL FROM THE KITCHEN!!!) to tell me that she was hungry and that she wanted me to bring her a piece of string cheese. 

I, being the terrible mother that I am, made her get up and get it herself, so I hope she learned THAT is not going to fly around here, but still...

You have to admire such a dedication to 'resourcefulness' at such a young age, I guess.

Easter Egging

Brigid had so much fun with all of the Christmas activities we did in December that I've been trying to make sure I have at least a couple of activities on hand for each of the other holidays throughout the rest of the year. We always have a couple of hours in afternoon, just the two of us, when Caitlin naps after school is out, and so far, we've made valentines and spring pictures, decorated foam flowers and shamrocks, and painted wooden butterflies. With Easter coming up quickly, dying eggs was the next obvious activity choice for us to tackle. Since I didn't know when Brigid would be in the mood to dye the eggs (and then hunt for those eggs, since that's just how Brigid rolls...), I bought some of those cardboard eggs that are supposed to be dyeable, just so I wouldn't misplace a real egg somewhere in the house, then forget about it. 

Because that is absolutely something I would do, and nobody needs to stumble across something like that a few months down the road...

Anyway, the eggs took to the dye about as much as I expected, which is to say not really at all, but Brigid had fun with it, and I guess that's what matters in all of this. It's not like they have to be perfect or anything. 

(If I keep telling myself that my projects don't have to be perfect, I'll start to believe it, right?)

And now, if you'll excuse me, we're off to start training for the church Easter egg hunt, because the organizers seem to frown upon me following Brigid around and blocking her competition from finding all of the eggs, so I'm just going to have to teach her how to throw her own elbows. SOMEBODY needs to be responsible for bringing me some candy home. 

 

My Little Leprechauns!

A happy St. Patrick's Day from my favorite little Irish babies!

Snow Day! Again!

This is my 8th winter in Georgia, and thinking back on all of this time, I've realized it has snowed more years than not since that move. This?

This is not what I signed up for when I moved to the south. 

I guess it's a good thing we bought the girls cheap snow suits when we were up in Indiana at Thanksgiving, because at least they seemed to enjoy it...

(She threw that snowball at me. She's out of the will, obviously.)

She'd like you to start calling her Queen Elsa, if you don't mind.

Our trees have been ice covered since early Monday evening. It's not ideal, as the icy branches have wreaked havoc on the power lines across our county (We had no electricity overnight on Monday, but we were lucky. My in-laws STILL don't have power, almost 48 hours later.), but it's been kind of pretty (Spoken only as someone not still without power could could speak...). Plus, Brigid woke up with a fever on Tuesday morning, so all of the school and activity cancellations nicely corresponded with what would have been a couple of sick days, anyway. But still...

I'm ready for it to all go away now. 

Unfortunately, it's supposed to get down to something like 17 degrees tonight, so I doubt that's going to happen. 

Brigid, when she looked out the window yesterday and realized that the ice wasn't going anywhere, moaned, 'Why, Elsa?!? WHY?'. So at least we know who is to blame for this debacle. And at least we know the ice isn't affecting anyone's imagination around here... 

Caitlin

Enough said. 

I will never get tired of this...

Caitlin is on the move, nonstop. She jumps from one activity to another, from one place to another. She still doesn't talk, which is partially a bad thing, because she definitely should be talking by now, but also isn't the worst thing in the world, because I can't imagine how quickly her brain jumps from one idea to another, and I'm scared that once she stops talking, she won't ever stop. And honestly, Brigid talks more than enough for both of them, so I'm good with the way things are right now.

She drags Steve over to the couch the minute he gets home from work, where she'll sit with him for maybe three seconds, tops, before she jumps off the couch and runs into the other room. She doesn't even really expect him to follow her when she leaves, and I'm starting to think she just likes to know that he will be in the same place she left him, when she decides she wants to go back to him. She'll sit on the floor, and pat the spot next to her, until I sit down, too, at which point she jumps up and runs off. She brings me books to read to her, but I have to read fast, because she wants those pages turned, and she wants them turned RIGHT NOW. She wants us to sing to her while she does the hand motions she associates with the songs we're singing, but she wants to do the hand motions for the next verse of the song, not the one we're on right now, and she'll start clapping for herself when she's done with the song, not when it's actually over.

She has thoughts and opinions, and she's becoming such a little person all of a sudden. It's kind of scary.

But when she's sleepy? She'll finally slow down. She'll let me hold her, and rock her, and sing to her, and sniff her head. And then she sleeps, and she'll always be my sweet little baby.

Tattoos and all...

Kids Are Weird, Part 809

Brigid lives on nothing but string cheese and air. She will eat chicken fingers and macaroni and cheese from a box, and every once in awhile I can get her to eat green beans by referring to them as green french fries and letting her dip them in ketchup.

Beyond that? She won't eat much at all. If I'm making chicken for dinner, hers has to be plain and include the ketchup dipping sauce. Even if the chicken is basically plain, but it was cooked in some kind of green herb? She won't eat it unless I've picked every last speck of green off of it. Green flecks on pizza? Won't eat it. Green flecks on noodles? Nope.

She won't eat rice or anything that resembles rice. No veggies, no spices, nothing interesting at all.

If it's something that would appeal to almost anyone else in the world, she is not going to eat it.

Which is what makes living with Caitlin so much more strange, because that kid? She will eat pretty much anything you put in front of her. I've seen her eat sushi, pork belly, plain spinach leaves, and various spicy sauces. She just likes food. She eats more variety than Steve and I do, now that I think about it, because I won't touch pork belly, and Steve wouldn't be caught dead with a piece of spinach.

She actively chooses bell peppers for snacks. It's depressing when you realize that your still-nonverbal-2yr-old makes better life choices than you do some days.

Of course, today when I went to get her up from her nap, I found her standing up in her crib, completely naked, after she'd taken all of her clothes and her diaper off in protest of how long it took me to get to her. So maybe I shouldn't feel too bad about her life choices?

Stylish

Hipster Brigid wants you to know she liked Frozen before it was cool...

Mixed Loyalties

Raising a Notre Dame fan in the heart of SEC country can be tough, but we've done a pretty good job of it, I'd say. When Notre Dame and Georgia played in back-to-back bowl games about a month ago, Brigid was dressed appropriately for each game. But underneath each jersey was the same ND t-shirt, because even if we cheer for Georgia every once in awhile, we're still Irish underneath it all...

(I just can't get over how old she looks now. She is just such a little PERSON, and I'm not entirely sure I approve.)

What Was Happening While I Was Gone

Life got more than a little busy around here at the end of the year, between work deadlines, holiday activities, traveling, and the general mess of Christmas preparations, and as a result, I took an accidental break from blogging that went longer than I'd expected. And even though I missed it (and even though my mom and dad missed it enough to ask me when I would be getting back to it...), I'm glad I took the break.

But I still need to document my fun times, because if a family has fun, but it doesn't appear on the internet, did the fun actually happen? I don't want to test that theory.

First, we Fall-ed and Halloween-ed. We made our annual trip to the pumpkin patch, (reluctantly, in Brigid's case) carved the pumpkins we picked up there, and trick-or-treated with the other 15 kids in our cul-de-sac on Halloween, dressed as Vampire-Elsa, of course.

Oh. And I had this guy watching me through my office window all fall. So, that was something...

For Thanksgiving, we drove up to Indiana for the week, which I think will become our new annual tradition, so that we can be at our own home with the girls for Christmas morning every year. Plus, this gives us a chance to celebrate Caitlin's birthday with my family during the years when Thanksgiving falls later in November. I would like it noted that I did a MUCH better job on Caitlin's second birthday than I did on her first, and I think I should get points for that. (Even if I did just recycle Brigid's 5th birthday theme from two months earlier...)

And we went ahead and visited Santa Claus, while we were up there, for the annual picture my sisters and I have taken for our parents. It's kind of funny to think about how the number in our group has doubled since the first time we did this together, maybe 10 years ago. And yet, it's still nothing but girls in my family... 

When we returned from Indiana, there was Baby's First Dance Recital (and if you try to tell me that Brigid doesn't still qualify as a baby, I will tell you to shut your mouth right this very moment...) waiting for us. I have never, ever seen Brigid look as cute as she did in that dance recital costume, and considering just how cute she is all of the time, that's really saying something.

Oh, hey. Then we went to Disney for a few days. We hadn't been since we were there last year during the home-sale crisis of 2013, so I was excited to get back, at Christmas time, when I was in a better frame of mind. And I was in a better frame of mind...until Caitlin spiked a fever and had another febrile seizure AS WE WERE WALKING IN TO HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS. That was not the best time.

But, uh, the rest of the trip was good...

Then there was Christmas, involving a trip to see Santa (again) (and apparently Shrek and Donkey live in the North Pole, now? I don't even know.) and more presents than my two little stinkers probably deserved. 

And that was the rest of our 2014. I think maybe I'm caught up now? Here's to staying a little more on top of things in 2015...