2 weeks till 2 years old!

Everyone,

In 2 weeks my baby will be 2 years old. Where does the time go? Juice said that time was just plugging along before we had her, and then suddenly it grew up and got a real job. Now time just races by. I'm doing another picture slide show for her so look for that in about 2 weeks.

She talks up a blue streak, repeating everything I say and then some. She frequently asks to go to Nana's house ("Go Nana's house? Ride airplane! Play toys!") since we are leaving in 2 weeks for a visit to Utah. My mom told her on the phone that she has toys for Butterfly to play with. She asks for them. She also asks to go over to the house where I babysit or over to "Kebin" who is a friend of ours from our church.

Her favorite thing right now is to dance. She knows how to turn on the CD player in my room and will dance fast or slow depending on the music. The slower the music, the more arm movement is involved. Fast music needs some spinning on the ground and lots of bouncing. She wants us to join her and we do sometimes. But if we are the audience (which she says), then we're not even allowed to bob our head. There are rules people and you must follow them.

She has a few favorite stuffed animals (FINALLY) and will sit and chat with them in the mornings. I get a few more minutes in bed and she pretends with her toys. She asks them to "Cummon you guys" and "Drink, both hands". She has a few teddy bears which she calls care bears and has them do the care bear stare. She has a care bear dvd that we watch a lot.

She is also into books lately. She has always been a book worm but now she will sit and turn the pages by herself and explain the pictures to herself. She will often just burst out laughing and say "That funny!" when a picture catches her fancy.

She is a pretty good eater for lunch and dinner, but breakfast is a bit of a chore. She loves loves loves "jelly sandwich peanut butter" and will eat a few half sandwiches through out the day. She is also wanting to drink from regular cups and not sippy cups so I have started giving her small amounts of water at lunch in a small plastic cup. She loves hot dogs, black beans, ice cream, raisins, milk (she still calls it "nup") and meat. She loves meat of any kind. She does okay with green beans if you catch her on a good day, and also loves tomatoes, strawberries (any kind of fruit for that matter), and peas.

My favorite things she does is randomly she will come up to me and hug me and tell me she loves me. She will also ask me "What wrong Mommy?" if I'm trying to sleep or if I'm sad. She also knows she can't go in the street with out holding hands "Hold my hand!" She sings her own version of Twinkle, the Wheels on the Bus, and the Snowman song. She does all the hand actions to about 8 different songs. She also knows a few nursery rhymes like Humpty Dumpty and Hey Diddle Diddle. What I want to know is it too early for the whys to start. I tell her to do something and I get a "Why?" Ugh, it's getting frustrating to do things like dress her or put on shoes because every time I ask her to do something she asks "Why?" back. She does love to pick out her clothes so I've kind of given up on that battle. You want to wear this bright yellow shirt with totally clashing shorts? And different colored socks? Sure. Often she looks like her daddy dressed her, but really it's just her. I do insist on matching stuff when we are going out for a play date or something, but otherwise, she can wear what she wants.

We have discovered the joys of 2 minutes. Say if she doesn't want to go inside and will scream and cry and carry on if I make her, I ask her if she wants to go in now or in 2 minutes. Almost always she picks two minutes. And when I say the 2 minutes is up, she happily follows me inside. Or to get her diaper changed, or to take a nap. Sometimes she will even come up to me and say "2 minutes up!" before they are and we go do whatever it is we should have done.

I can't believe she is going to be 2 years old!

Safire

Spring Dresses

Everyone,

Just for my mom, I thought I'd post pictures of Butterfly in her spring/summer dresses. She is just so adorable and such a big girl!

Thanks Mom for the bottom dress. She looks so cute in it!




Safire

A trip to the ER

Everyone,

On Friday, we took Juice out to get his hair cut. Butterfly and I went to go get food. And about an hour later we returned to the house. Totting hot burritos and a lot less hair.

I got into the house first and let Soot out of the kitchen where we keep her when we are gone. She is jumpy and happy as always. I just noticed something red on her foot. I didn't even bother to look at it closely right at first. I figured it was some kind of sticker that was stuck. Then I wondered, "What has she gotten into that a big red sticker would be on her foot?" So I took a closer look.

No sticker. Blood. And lots of it. And a huge gaping wound about 2 inches long and open about a quarter inch. So I scoop up the dog and run outside to Juice and Butterfly, and say we need to go to the doggy hospital. I showed him her leg, and called our regular vet to see if we go there or what. They were closing, so they sent us to the doggy ER about 20 minutes from our house. Address and phone number in hand, we ran off to the ER eating our food as we went.

Can I just say that it's a great thing to have a doggy ER but boy are they sad places. We got there and hung out for about 20 minutes in the waiting room while more emergency cases were moved to the back. It was a small waiting room, and there was a very chatty lady in there with her teenage daughter. Her dog was in because she had a fever for days and antibiotics weren't taking it down. A few other people came with nasty cuts, a dog fight victim, a loud pathetic sounding cat, and a dog they were putting down for reasons unknown to us.

We were there almost 2 hours. Butterfly was a great little girl. The loud cat entertained her to no end. First the kitty was talking to her, and then the kitty was singing so she danced around. Then the kitty was whistling (no idea where that one came from). We rearranged all the fliers they have, and read a few of the free magazines. The whole time she was asking, "Where Soot?" or popping up with "Soot has owie." She is so cute. Towards the end, we had to take her outside where she ran up and down the wheelchair ramp. I didn't even think to grab her any toys when we left so it's nice to know that she can be entertained with what they have in the office.

Soot ended up with 3 staples in her leg, and a huge pink bandage and a lovely for her head. She is SO FUNNY with this cone on. She keeps running into corners and just stopping because she can't figure out why she is not going anywhere. She doesn't really fit through her doggy door so we have to make sure she gets outside.

A few days later, we took her to her regular vet who pronounced her 90% healed and put a smaller bandage on her. She promptly got it off, so we just left it off. They shaved her down a lot and she looks a little funny still but she is healing. We have to carry her up and down the stairs and she is restricted to short walks around the 'block' until next week when they take the staples out.

Poor thing. We don't even know how she did it.

Safire

Easter Egg Roll 2007

Everyone,

Okay, that camping out bit, SO worth it to go to the Egg Roll. It was so much fun. We got there and they gave us free breakfast (eggs in tortillas, juice and fruit) and a free juicer and a free CD from sunkist. They also had a little stage where they were playing some music.

Once we got into our tent to wait for the Egg roll, we saw all of our friends from church and said hello. But once we were on the White House lawn, I think we saw them once more and that was it. There was SO much to do, and not just whacking eggs with a spoon down a slope. We of course, did that first because that's what we came here to do. They actually take real spoons and stuff from the WH kitchen and had over 10,000 colored eggs for the day. Imagine the chickens that could have made!

There was face painting, coloring, story nooks, 4 different entertainment stages, an animal stop, an egg hut, a bunny fitness trail, and more.

I had the most fun with the egg roll and the animal stop. Mainly because the monkey fell in love with Juice and wouldn't let him leave. It was even pushing off of it's handler to get Juice to pick him up. What can I say, Juice is loved by all. I also loved the animal stop because where else will Butterfly get to touch a snake, an alligator, a monkey and see a porcupine eat a bottle? It was seriously cool.

We skipped the face painting because by the time we got there, the line was huge. We also skipped the free professional pictures because no one but me wanted to do it. Kind of bummed about that one and if we end up going again, that will be my first stop. We did meet the speedy delivery guy from Mr. Rogers and Butterfly got a signed picture of him. Having never watched Mr. Rogers really, I was unimpressed. But Juice got a kick out of it.

Butterfly also took the egg dying seriously and died her egg deep pink. She flipped over a white spot that it had, so we stuck a sticker over it (a butterfly, of course) and she carried it around the rest of the time.

We got so much free stuff there, beyond the food they had there. Coloring books, special egg dying kits made just for this event, candy, diapers, a poster, and the coveted wooden egg signed by the president and first lady. Butterfly got a purple one. She enjoys pointing it out on our shelf every now and then.

We had the greatest day. I think I would love to do it again.

Safire

Ticket Campout

Everyone,

All I can say is that this Egg Roll thing better be worth it. It turns out that all the ladies from my church that I was supposed to go with kind of chickened out because of the snow. They sent their husbands instead. I would have but my good friend, Lea, really wanted to go and her husband works nights. So we went.

We hauled all of our stuff down there on the Metro and walked 2 blocks to the White House. Everyone kept looking at us and averting their eyes like we were homeless. We did look pretty scruffy...old jeans, a tent, bags.

When we finally reached the Ellipse, we dropped our stuff and went in search of dinner. Did you know that practically all the restaurants near the White House close at 7pm? We must have tried 3 different places before we found one that was just closing and agreed to make us some gyros.

And then, the waiting. Oh, the waiting. We sat and chatted with the husbands for a few hours. 2 of them are doctors so that was pretty interesting. And then I got tired so I went and laid down in my freezing cold tent. Because, of course, it was like 20 degrees outside and all I had brought was a sleeping bag. Granted, this sleeping bag will go to -20 so I was still okay. But man it was cold! And I kept waking up to cars going past, and people playing Apples to Apples right next to the tent. I do think I managed to doze off because when my alarm when off to go get the tickets, Lea was in the tent.

My friend Ra, who kind of organized the thing, said that they typically pass out vouchers for the tickets between midnight and 3am. So I set my alarm for midnight, and we proceed to sit out in the cold and wait. Boy did we wait. And while we waited, it started to snow. I had taken my sleeping bag out there with me, propped 2 chairs up and promptly fell asleep. I think I slept for close to an hour when Lea woke me up and said she was going back to the tent because it was snowing too much for her. So back to the tent we go.

Around 4am, they finally came around to pass out the vouchers. I was #104, and I owe that all to Ra's sister who came down at 2pm to set up chairs. Vouchers received, sleep needed. Back to the tent for more fitful sleep.

Then, at 7am, they started coming around and asking everyone to fold their tent. After brushing the inch or so snow off the tent, we did. And then more waiting. But this time hauling all of our stuff around with us. We do not have a light tent. And I couldn't get it back into the bag. I am not the master packer that Juice is.

Finally, we got the tickets. 10:15 am for Monday. This better be worth it.

Safire

Snow

Everyone,

It's April. And it's snowing. And it's supposed to snow tomorrow night while I am camping out. Feeling a little crazy but I am going!!

Safire

Happy Birthday Juice!

Everyone,

So I know I haven't written in awhile. In my defence, Juice and Butterfly are sick so it takes up ALL of my energy to deal with them. And then the weather changed and I just couldn't be inside. But now that it's rainy and cold, I might actually do some more typing. We'll see.

Juice turned 28 last weekend. He had a great low key birthday where we ordered our favorite restaurant to go and spent the evening playing with his birthday presents. Butterfly and I got him a usb rocket launcher and he tried to hit poor Soot, even though it says in the instruction booklet not to aim it at pets. Once I read that, he tried to aim it at me. He said that it didn't say anything about wives. Lucky for him, it has a short range and makes a loud popping noise before it goes off. Kind of like the flame spurt in "The Princess Bride".

He also got a new card game called Killer Bunnies. So hilarious! We played it a few times but we need more people. Anyone want to come over for a night of card game playing? We promise to provide snacks. The purpose of this game is to keep your bunnies alive and to avoid things like the eboli virus and being abducted by aliens.

This weekend I am braving the cold and camping out on the Ellipse of the White House for their Easter Egg Roll celebration. It's supposed to be in the 30s. I am so excited to have a night out. This will be my first night away from my house without Butterfly. In almost 2 years. I think I'm due for it, don't you? Granted, I would have rather gone someplace like Florida or something for this but camping out with all my gal pals is just as fun.

Safire