Hooray for Good Friends!

I'm so grateful for my friend Julie who just pulled up in front of my house yesterday, called me from her cell, and stated we were going to the park. Instead of spending the day inside feeling still slightly ill we had a wonderful time on a beautiful sunny day. She pulled me out of a funk, and although I'm not completely over this illness I feel much better.

Maggie is actually using Luke's head to push herself up to the slide!

You can't tell but Maggie is squealing her head off here.

Here's a short clip of Julie getting the kids a little bit dizzy:

Treat

When Maggie hears the word "treat" it means one of these. Cookie means cookie, raisin means raisin, etc but treat, well, treat can only be one thing:

She loves treats. Here she is eating one...in mere seconds.

Then she feels too full to wear her pants. Off they come.

I wish this was a close-up. This is her skeptical look. I get it a lot.

I heard Maggie pull out a chair and climb up to play in the phone nook. I let her play there a good 15 minutes, took some pictures, and THEN noticed the huge box cutter sitting right in front of her. I felt like such a good parent!

So Sorry, This Is All I Have

Today is the start of Maggie's second week of daycare. So far she's picked up two things--an VERY nasty cold and how to throw tantrums. Lucky, lucky us. She's shared both. Patrick sniffles on occasion while I find myself in the dregs of misery.

I crawled out of bed this morning just in time to drop my tantrum throwing daughter off at germ central only to come home and plop myself on the couch and sob. Why? I dunno. I think this last round, after so so many previous bouts of illness, has just shoved me right off that edge I was teetering on.

I don't think it helped one little bit that yesterday I decided (amidst all my physical and emotional fragility) to watch the slide show of my brother Brian's life. I bawled, and bawled, and then bawled some more. Then I thought it might be fun to call my sister Julie and bawl to her. Good times.....this greatly helped my mood and that nasty headache I already had.

The slide show is a beautiful tribute to my brothers life and I've thought of posting it on my blog many times but never have because, well, I bawl.

Anyway, I digress. Tantrums. Maggie has taken quite naturally to them. She drops to her knees then throws herself onto her stomach and elbow and screams. It's a treat. I'm sure when she gets home today she'll throw one or two whoppers. I'll do my best to take a picture of it or something. Hey, what else am I supposed to do with tantrums?

Now that I've done what I'm sure Patrick will view as weak and embarrassing (show my emotions and blubber in public--although I'd hardly call my blog public with my viewership) I'll wrap it up with a promise: Sweet pictures of my little girl, happy thoughts, and better times on the horizon.

Movie Time

A couple of movies. Hey, I'm sick and I really have no energy (or desire, really) to do anything else but blog.

I'm Stuck!

We had the missionaries over on Friday. They had a DVD to show us so we set up in the room with all of Maggie's toys. It was a beautiful video about Christ and we were both trying to pay attention but Maggie had hopped on her tricycle and found herself facing a barrier--the couch and her dad blocking her path. She bumped into her dad's leg and yelled, "I'm stuck!". Even the missionaries couldn't stop laughing. By the way, her dad taught her to say I'm stuck.

Later she did the same thing when getting caught in a corner of the kitchen but she wasn't actually stuck. She kept saying, "I'm stuck, I'm stuck, I'm stuck" as she carefully backed herself out.

Ok, I guess this time I'll explain the outfit. Maggie has taken to dressing up with whatever she can get her hands on. This time she found a swimsuit bottom and decided to wear it as a hat. She's peering through a leg hole.

As a Means of Catching Up

Maggie is still very much in love with shoes and she's very proficient at walking in mine!

Patrick occasionally finds useless coins that he gives to Maggie as toys.

He's also taught her how to drop the coins from a standing position into a bowl. She can do it standing up straight but I could only get a photo of her bending her knees (cheating).

I just like this picture.

Balls still rank in the top 3 toy picks.

Weekend Review: It's Baaaack

The curse is back. After spending the entire month of January sick, we had a couple of blissful illness-free weeks. But...it's back. We're all sick.

Maggie had her first week of day care and by Friday night was not feeling well (we actually expected this--daycare being the breeding ground for this sort of thing). By mid-Saturday she was feverish, limp, and totally pathetic. Her temperature climbed through the night and broke early Sunday morning. She had "slept" with us because we were so worried about her. I mostly just hovered over her. Plus sleep wouldn't come with two sizzling hot feet digging into my stomach. Maggie has a habit of calming herself by scratching the sheet to fall asleep. While I was constantly kicked, Patrick got the pleasure of her tiny hand scratching him all night but somehow managed to sleep a little!

We almost took her to the emergency room but were calmed by a call to Em's pediatrician husband Wes. Now she's back to her old energy level with the added loveliness of a head full of snot and a juicy cough. And, I've got it too! Patrick is a pretty hearty guy but I think even he is showing signs of this illness.

I took only a few pics this weekend. Here's Maggie helping her daddy with his coin collection. He's super patient about letting her "help". She helps him identify what he has using books, the internet, and most importantly the "big" (magnifying glass).

Those little fists are holding onto some coins.

Another Great Weather Day!

We really have to take advantage of every nice day that comes along. They will be spotty from now until probably the middle of May.

We did just that when a good moment popped up just the other day.

There were lots of small planes flying around and every time Maggie heard one she pointed it out. She was able to point them out to me when I couldn't easily find them in the sky myself!

Mommy Maggie

Maggie has taken to treating one of her bears as her new baby (she completely ignores her dolls). She carries it around in her arms like a baby. Sometimes it's by itself and other times she carefully swaddles it with her mini blanket and carries it around like that. I have no clue how she learned to swaddle but the bear ends up perfectly swaddled!

She also shares her chair with the bear--giving it a nice comfortable place to sit.

I have no explanation for the outfit so don't ask.

I Think I'm a Vegetarian....Again

Did anyone else watch Friday's 20/20 show? Well, I did. I wish I hadn't. They had a segment on that fabulous new exhibit showing actual human bodies (in various stages of dissection) that have been "plasticized".

I had been craving a burger all day and Patrick was fixing dinner while I watched the show. Half way through the segment I turned to him and said, "make one for yourself only, I've lost my appetite". I have not eaten meat since. For some reason I was so upset by seeing those bodies I have been completely turned off meat. For those of you who don't know, I was a vege for about 7 years but eventually went back to meat. I'll keep you posted on when/if I eat flesh again. Maybe its like giving birth--you forget over time??



There is a You Tube video of some of the exhibit but the embed feature is disabled. If you care to check it out, here is the link. BUT consider yourself warned. Although fascinating, it was totally disturbing at the same time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kJmypE1DGQ

Intro to Mini Golf

Patrick and I took Maggie for her first round of miniature golf. We have one really little (silly) glow in the dark course in town. This made for really bad picture taking.

She really was hilarious out there. She even got the hang of using the teeny weeny tiny club they give to toddlers. She mostly just carried all three golf balls around and threw them randomly--good thing the place wasn't very crowded.

For The Love of...

Mittens?

She askes for them but needs help to get them on.

Our Valentines Day

I was having a particularly gloomy day (maybe because of the twelve chocolates I ate for lunch--dratted Valentines!) and Maggie woke up from her nap in a bad mood.

We decided to play in the new snow. We had SO much fun!! We just hung out in the back yard but Maggie loved the snow and had a great time.

Here she is wanting to go back out.

Then she found the first hat I knitted for her and decided she loved it---loved it down around her eyes.

Then Daddy came home from work (yes, on occasion he does venture into the office) with a balloon valentine for Maggie and some celebrity gossip mags for me!!! Boy, does he know his girls well!

This video is a little long (about 3 min) but, as usual, I couldn't find anything to cut!

Our Little Patch of Snow

We had a FANTASTIC weather day yesterday. I didn't take any pictures of us out there enjoying it--although we totally did! But I took some pictures of Maggie playing in our backyard a few days ago when we had semi-decent weather. She tried desperately to play with the tiny little patch of snow we had left.

Banana

Patrick wakes up with Maggie, feeds her breakfast, and generally gets the day started. She always gets a banana after oatmeal. Out of habit, the banana is cut into slices for her. Well...I did breakfast this morning and just handed the peeled banana to her. She was just not sure what to do with the peel.

But she got the hang of it.

Play Date at Maggie's

We had a spur of the moment play date at our house. Everyone seemed to have a great time.
Alex is really the only one who looked good in the pic but he did look cute.

Luke just seemed SO small walking around the kitchen! Adorable.

And the newest member of our little group is Brooke. Here's one of mom Vicki and little Brooke.

Swinging in The Owl Bag

Here's a short clip of Maggie and Dad playing around with the owl bag.

Weekend Review: Mostly Marshmallows

Friday we had our friends Reagan and her mom AJ over to make homemade peppermint marshmallows (to be used in hot cocoa) for a church activity. So sad for Reagan because Maggie slept through the entire visit! She had to wait until Sunday to play in nursery.
I got a little teeny tiny bit obsessed with marshmallows and made several more batches.

Saturday was a relaxing day of working out, cleaning, errands. Saturday afternoon we had the missionaries for a couple of hours as they chatted up Patrick about the gospel. We've hit the inevitable "word of wisdom" discussion.

That evening we played with my new tote. Does it look familiar? For Emily Style readers it should. She posted about it here.

Sunday Maggie decided to do some cleaning. She put a paper towel on the floor, took sips of water, and then spit the water onto the towel to "mop" with. She's just so darn helpful...