Grammy (Dan's mom) suffered a brain aneurysm last Wednesday night. It's been a hard week.
Dan and I went together today to visit in the hospital, and we arrived at the height of her worst day there yet. Needless to say, we were very taken aback and upset. I forced myself to keep it together, but had to leave the room for a little bit. Maddie had entrusted me with taking a small jewelry box with "happy charms" (some beads that she put in there so that Grammy would feel loved) to her Grammy, and I made sure that I delivered on that promise.
It's been very hard on Dan. He's kicking himself and blaming himself for not calling enough, and not helping with his dad as much. None of it is Dan's fault, and I tell him that; but, of course he's feeling the guilt and helplessness that is this situation. Dan's not sleeping, and neither am I. I couldn't believe that last night I even forgot (completely forgot!) to draw the picture that the tooth fairy always leaves for her, along with the dollar bill tucked inside. We're struggling to keep things going here and trying to manage the visits that are needed in Lancaster. 45 minutes to Lancaster, and 45 minutes to Dan's work.
Maddie has been especially worried and sad about it all. She asks every single day when she can go see Grammy, and works every day on making new pictures to send to her. I'm praying that her Grammy makes it out of this, and as the person that we remember.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Thursday, February 2, 2012
January in its succinct version
January has come and gone, and I can't get over how quickly it passed.
January will always be to me the month of my big girl's birthday. My Crannie is now a 7-year-old. A SEVEN year old. 7 sounds crazy to me. Of course, I do realize that I say this about every age.
Maddie had been wanting a "mustang" birthday party, as she just loves horses. She decided at the end of December that she wanted a Jessie the cowgirl birthday party (much to a certain sister's delight and envy... Faith now wants a Jessie party next year!), and so she had herself a Jessie party. On her actual birthday her sole request was "brownies, and that we are all together." My sweet girl.
January also kept us busy with our daily routine:
Dan and I had been wanting to get the girlies to the zoo for awhile now. We used to take Maddie and Faith to the Philly zoo in the winters when they offered the "pay the weather" admission, but they don't seem to offer that anymore. We were excited though when we saw that Zoo America was having free admission on a weekend that we had promised the girlies a trip to Chocolate World in Hershey anyway. So, we made a day of it and visited the zoo before heading over to Chocolate World. It had snowed the day before, and so the animals were just loving the weather and were much more active than usual. I loved that part. And, our girlfriends loved seeing the animals fooling around too;) We also got to see a barn owl up close and personal when a zoo official brought him over to us. That was pretty cool.
And, of course we just love Chocolate World. We rode the ride 3 times, and Abrie, Faith, and I rode it a 4th time while Dan and Maddie went to get a slushie. Abrie and Faith probably would have gotten back on another 10 more times. They call it the "Its a Small World ride of Pennsylvania!" Girlies did the free Factory experience too, and loved it.
We've been using our library pass for the historical society a lot this month too. We went together one day last week, and then Dan took them on a Saturday that I had to work. They just love the children's area at the historical society:
This past weekend we visited with beloved cousins to celebrate Uncle Nate's 32nd birthday. We had a blast! Girlies thought it was the coolest thing to see Uncle Nate having a birthday party because they always ask why we don't have birthday parties. Faith is always talking about how she wants to throw us parties;) We went for a hike at the bird sanctuary, which is a favorite place of ours to go, and Aunt Lisi and Uncle Nate organized a fun scavenger hunt for clues to get to the pirate pinata.
We've had some wonderful weather this week too, and it was a perfect way to close out January.
January will always be to me the month of my big girl's birthday. My Crannie is now a 7-year-old. A SEVEN year old. 7 sounds crazy to me. Of course, I do realize that I say this about every age.
Maddie had been wanting a "mustang" birthday party, as she just loves horses. She decided at the end of December that she wanted a Jessie the cowgirl birthday party (much to a certain sister's delight and envy... Faith now wants a Jessie party next year!), and so she had herself a Jessie party. On her actual birthday her sole request was "brownies, and that we are all together." My sweet girl.
January also kept us busy with our daily routine:
Dan and I had been wanting to get the girlies to the zoo for awhile now. We used to take Maddie and Faith to the Philly zoo in the winters when they offered the "pay the weather" admission, but they don't seem to offer that anymore. We were excited though when we saw that Zoo America was having free admission on a weekend that we had promised the girlies a trip to Chocolate World in Hershey anyway. So, we made a day of it and visited the zoo before heading over to Chocolate World. It had snowed the day before, and so the animals were just loving the weather and were much more active than usual. I loved that part. And, our girlfriends loved seeing the animals fooling around too;) We also got to see a barn owl up close and personal when a zoo official brought him over to us. That was pretty cool.
And, of course we just love Chocolate World. We rode the ride 3 times, and Abrie, Faith, and I rode it a 4th time while Dan and Maddie went to get a slushie. Abrie and Faith probably would have gotten back on another 10 more times. They call it the "Its a Small World ride of Pennsylvania!" Girlies did the free Factory experience too, and loved it.
We've been using our library pass for the historical society a lot this month too. We went together one day last week, and then Dan took them on a Saturday that I had to work. They just love the children's area at the historical society:
This past weekend we visited with beloved cousins to celebrate Uncle Nate's 32nd birthday. We had a blast! Girlies thought it was the coolest thing to see Uncle Nate having a birthday party because they always ask why we don't have birthday parties. Faith is always talking about how she wants to throw us parties;) We went for a hike at the bird sanctuary, which is a favorite place of ours to go, and Aunt Lisi and Uncle Nate organized a fun scavenger hunt for clues to get to the pirate pinata.
We've had some wonderful weather this week too, and it was a perfect way to close out January.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Just the little things
The little things are what light up my life:
Abrielle--
This girl is the funniest thing in the world, and it's quite clear where she gets it from... her "Dotch" (aka Faith). There's so many things that she does that she even tells us "I do it from Dotch," and she exaggerates them by about 10x. The faces. The funny noises. She is a riot!
Her voice is just adorable. I am in love with it. These are the 'Abrie-isms' of recent months:
She uses 'y' instead of 'l' ... 'yights' for lights, 'Bug's Yife' for 'Bug's Life,' 'yeggies' for leggies, etc.
She adds a 'd' after an 'n' if it's in the middle of the word... 'Minndie' for Minnie, 'Undo Moo' for Uno Moo (a game that she absolutely LOVES!), 'dinder time' for dinner time, 'I'm runnding' for I'm running, etc.
Some of her famous Abrie phrases that she says a lot to make us laugh are "ding dong, you're wrong" or "oh, hunkey dorey!" She also thinks she's funny and pretends not to hear us, and then she'll look at us and say "what?? what you said?"
Faith--
Oh my Faith-y and her beloved cowgirl Jessie. She is just too much with her Jessie doll. Nene got her a Hawaiian Jessie for Christmas, and she just adores her. She pulled the string so often that now it doesn't work, but she says "it's to prove that she's magic and that really does come to life." Faith doesn't go anywhere without her Jessie. Jessie sits at our table for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Faith takes a bite of something, and then Jessie gets force fed a bite of whatever it is that Faith just ate. Faith takes a sip from her cup, and then Jessie gets a straw in her mouth. Jessie gets pajamas at night, and gets tucked into the crib in their cottage. This is a step up from what Faith was doing as Jessie's bedtime ritual: she insisted that Jessie liked to sleep "cozy" and would wrap her up in an Air Force flag and then put her in a backpack that she would then place next to her pillow.
My Faith-y.
Maddie--
Maddie has her 1st ever "big" project for school.. a diorama. She chose to do her diorama about Siamese cats (the girl so desperately wants a cat!) and we worked on it quite a bit tonight.
Whereas Faith is the big spender in our family, Maddie is the saver. These girls have quite a bit saved up in their Disney envelope, and now Maddie made them a new one called "Calico Critters fund." She makes lists all the time of things that she wants to save her money for, and she hates to spend even $1. She even came up with her plan of starting a pet care business, and made some signs with their information. It was quite cute. She asked me to make 30 copies at work, and so far I think they've only put about 8 in local mailboxes.
Abrielle--
This girl is the funniest thing in the world, and it's quite clear where she gets it from... her "Dotch" (aka Faith). There's so many things that she does that she even tells us "I do it from Dotch," and she exaggerates them by about 10x. The faces. The funny noises. She is a riot!
Her voice is just adorable. I am in love with it. These are the 'Abrie-isms' of recent months:
She uses 'y' instead of 'l' ... 'yights' for lights, 'Bug's Yife' for 'Bug's Life,' 'yeggies' for leggies, etc.
She adds a 'd' after an 'n' if it's in the middle of the word... 'Minndie' for Minnie, 'Undo Moo' for Uno Moo (a game that she absolutely LOVES!), 'dinder time' for dinner time, 'I'm runnding' for I'm running, etc.
Some of her famous Abrie phrases that she says a lot to make us laugh are "ding dong, you're wrong" or "oh, hunkey dorey!" She also thinks she's funny and pretends not to hear us, and then she'll look at us and say "what?? what you said?"
Faith--
Oh my Faith-y and her beloved cowgirl Jessie. She is just too much with her Jessie doll. Nene got her a Hawaiian Jessie for Christmas, and she just adores her. She pulled the string so often that now it doesn't work, but she says "it's to prove that she's magic and that really does come to life." Faith doesn't go anywhere without her Jessie. Jessie sits at our table for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Faith takes a bite of something, and then Jessie gets force fed a bite of whatever it is that Faith just ate. Faith takes a sip from her cup, and then Jessie gets a straw in her mouth. Jessie gets pajamas at night, and gets tucked into the crib in their cottage. This is a step up from what Faith was doing as Jessie's bedtime ritual: she insisted that Jessie liked to sleep "cozy" and would wrap her up in an Air Force flag and then put her in a backpack that she would then place next to her pillow.
My Faith-y.
Maddie--
Maddie has her 1st ever "big" project for school.. a diorama. She chose to do her diorama about Siamese cats (the girl so desperately wants a cat!) and we worked on it quite a bit tonight.
Whereas Faith is the big spender in our family, Maddie is the saver. These girls have quite a bit saved up in their Disney envelope, and now Maddie made them a new one called "Calico Critters fund." She makes lists all the time of things that she wants to save her money for, and she hates to spend even $1. She even came up with her plan of starting a pet care business, and made some signs with their information. It was quite cute. She asked me to make 30 copies at work, and so far I think they've only put about 8 in local mailboxes.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Magic of Christmas
Had such a wonderful Christmas/ New Year's break. It literally broke my heart that it had to end. There's nothing better in the world than having my family all together, the way it should be.
Girlies were so excited for Christmas, and spent a wonderful Christmas Eve with everyone in Lancaster. They had a ball! Their excitement to give OUT their presents to everyone this year was what I thought was the coolest thing.
Santa's big gift this year was a dollhouse for all 3 to share. This is going to be something that will last them years and years; I can see it already. They haven't stopped playing with it. They bring everyone to visit the dollhouse-- Calico Critters, princess dolls, little figures, etc etc. And, they use their little houses as hotels! They come up with the coolest things.
We visited Kitchen Kettle Village on New Year's Eve, and had so much fun. All 3 were so ready to "stay up to see the bomb drop" (as Faith puts it!), and didn't make it past 9:30-- which I still thought was a respectable hour considering they were all quite sick by that day. Maddie developed pneumonia and croup for Abrielle, but I've never seen them complain less about being sick. They amaze me.
There's a lot more to write, but I am happy in knowing that I have all the little details of this Christmas 2011 in my memory forever.
Girlies were so excited for Christmas, and spent a wonderful Christmas Eve with everyone in Lancaster. They had a ball! Their excitement to give OUT their presents to everyone this year was what I thought was the coolest thing.
Santa's big gift this year was a dollhouse for all 3 to share. This is going to be something that will last them years and years; I can see it already. They haven't stopped playing with it. They bring everyone to visit the dollhouse-- Calico Critters, princess dolls, little figures, etc etc. And, they use their little houses as hotels! They come up with the coolest things.
We visited Kitchen Kettle Village on New Year's Eve, and had so much fun. All 3 were so ready to "stay up to see the bomb drop" (as Faith puts it!), and didn't make it past 9:30-- which I still thought was a respectable hour considering they were all quite sick by that day. Maddie developed pneumonia and croup for Abrielle, but I've never seen them complain less about being sick. They amaze me.
There's a lot more to write, but I am happy in knowing that I have all the little details of this Christmas 2011 in my memory forever.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Anticipation builds!
Girlies are so beyond excited for Christmas, it's not even funny. Well, actually, it is funny... and cute. The second Faith wakes up every morning, she announces the new countdown until both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. They are ready!
Maddie stayed home from school today, and it was a wonderful day with my girls. It always feel like a gift in itself to just be able to relax at home with my 3 best girlfriends and have them here the three of them together. It was ironic what they decided to construct today. Maddie decided that since they've been busy playing with their Princess dolls that they needed a big dollhouse that would fit them. She made one herself out of a box and decorated it with Christmas bows. She and Faith got out their markers and drew a picture of a Christmas tree too to hang beside their make-shift dollhouse.
They played with that all day. The funny part is that I myself spent all of last night putting together their big present this year... a dollhouse that is big enough for their Barbie-sized princess dolls. It's funny how you see the excitement on their faces as the anticipation builds all month long for Christmas, and at the same time, how our anticipation builds just thinking about how their faces will light up when they see their Christmas gifts. We are really excited!
Spent the day outside and then the afternoon making cookies for Santa. It was a fun day!
And, this was graham cracker Christmas house fun this past weekend:
Maddie stayed home from school today, and it was a wonderful day with my girls. It always feel like a gift in itself to just be able to relax at home with my 3 best girlfriends and have them here the three of them together. It was ironic what they decided to construct today. Maddie decided that since they've been busy playing with their Princess dolls that they needed a big dollhouse that would fit them. She made one herself out of a box and decorated it with Christmas bows. She and Faith got out their markers and drew a picture of a Christmas tree too to hang beside their make-shift dollhouse.
They played with that all day. The funny part is that I myself spent all of last night putting together their big present this year... a dollhouse that is big enough for their Barbie-sized princess dolls. It's funny how you see the excitement on their faces as the anticipation builds all month long for Christmas, and at the same time, how our anticipation builds just thinking about how their faces will light up when they see their Christmas gifts. We are really excited!
Spent the day outside and then the afternoon making cookies for Santa. It was a fun day!
And, this was graham cracker Christmas house fun this past weekend:
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Peaceful days
Enjoyed such a relaxing weekend this past weekend. We didn't do much of anything besides making graham cracker houses, and the doing nothing aspect was literally the best part. I am so thoroughly looking forward to my time off at home with my 3 best girlfriends over the holidays. If only our favorite Daddy-o were off for Christmas with us..
Monday, December 12, 2011
December and an art sale already
Projects out to wazoo these days. Between that and TRYING to do Christmas shopping online (or, rather, practicing the art of putting items in your online shopping cart, and then 1+ hours later removing them all and heading to bed frustrated!) this online journal of mine has really fallen by the wayside.
Sufficed to say, I don't NEED my online jotting down of notes on my three girlfriends, but I do so love this way of being able to fill in the fuzzy outlines of the memories later on down the road in life.
Anyway, girlies have been busy with their set-ups as per usual. Nene got Faith their 1st ever Calico Critters for her 5th birthday, and these girls just adore them. They've had the Playmobil dollhouse in the living room for 2 weeks now, and the squirrel and cow families go back and forth between that dollhouse (their supposed "home") and the smaller dollhouse (which is their vacation home in Disney!). Faith and Abrie were busy playing all sorts of things the other day last week too, and they were having so much fun. They colored some more outfits for Faith's life-size paper dolls and pretended to go to a ball with Rapunzel and Ariel, and then were parading around with blankies on their heads that were supposed to be their astronaut helmets. They literally pulled every food item out of our cupboard then for their "astronaut food" and Dan had to vacuum up a big pile of cocoa powder that fell out while they sat with their cocoa astronaut food:
Maddie has been talking about wanting to do some sort of sale for the longest time. They had so much fun at their bake sale 2 summers ago, and had been wanting to do another one. Maddie is my dreamer of my 3 girlfriends. She thinks up ideas, and wants to make them happen right away. She is always getting notepads and notebooks out and jotting things down when she gets ideas. Well, she decided on Wednesday that she wanted to do an art sale this weekend. She and Faith went through all of their folders that I keep of their artwork, and they made piles of pictures that they didn't mind selling. Maddie hung out in the hallway outside their bedroom in the nighttime and worked on signs to post on our way to school that following morning. I just couldn't tell her no. She was up at 6:30am on Saturday morning wanting to get dressed and ready for her big sale. She brought their little table and chair upstairs to the front door (we told her it was way too cold to sit outside), and put out all the drawings. Dan and I were cracking up at her set-up.. she put a Barbie phone on a little table as her "secretary phone" and a little radio jukebox ornament for "musical entertainment." Her prices were a little outrageous, but she did have 2 customers and made $26! She and Faith were SO excited. They have been saving all their pennies for their Disney fund, and ran right away to put their money in their envelope.
And, Abrielle is just talking like crazy. Her new adorable thing that she says all the time is, "Oh, hunkey dorey!" from "Christmas Eve on Sesame Street." It is so funny when she says it! She sings all the time too, and learns songs just as quickly as her big sisters. She amazes me at how well she can sing the lyrics of songs.
Sufficed to say, I don't NEED my online jotting down of notes on my three girlfriends, but I do so love this way of being able to fill in the fuzzy outlines of the memories later on down the road in life.
Anyway, girlies have been busy with their set-ups as per usual. Nene got Faith their 1st ever Calico Critters for her 5th birthday, and these girls just adore them. They've had the Playmobil dollhouse in the living room for 2 weeks now, and the squirrel and cow families go back and forth between that dollhouse (their supposed "home") and the smaller dollhouse (which is their vacation home in Disney!). Faith and Abrie were busy playing all sorts of things the other day last week too, and they were having so much fun. They colored some more outfits for Faith's life-size paper dolls and pretended to go to a ball with Rapunzel and Ariel, and then were parading around with blankies on their heads that were supposed to be their astronaut helmets. They literally pulled every food item out of our cupboard then for their "astronaut food" and Dan had to vacuum up a big pile of cocoa powder that fell out while they sat with their cocoa astronaut food:
Maddie has been talking about wanting to do some sort of sale for the longest time. They had so much fun at their bake sale 2 summers ago, and had been wanting to do another one. Maddie is my dreamer of my 3 girlfriends. She thinks up ideas, and wants to make them happen right away. She is always getting notepads and notebooks out and jotting things down when she gets ideas. Well, she decided on Wednesday that she wanted to do an art sale this weekend. She and Faith went through all of their folders that I keep of their artwork, and they made piles of pictures that they didn't mind selling. Maddie hung out in the hallway outside their bedroom in the nighttime and worked on signs to post on our way to school that following morning. I just couldn't tell her no. She was up at 6:30am on Saturday morning wanting to get dressed and ready for her big sale. She brought their little table and chair upstairs to the front door (we told her it was way too cold to sit outside), and put out all the drawings. Dan and I were cracking up at her set-up.. she put a Barbie phone on a little table as her "secretary phone" and a little radio jukebox ornament for "musical entertainment." Her prices were a little outrageous, but she did have 2 customers and made $26! She and Faith were SO excited. They have been saving all their pennies for their Disney fund, and ran right away to put their money in their envelope.
And, Abrielle is just talking like crazy. Her new adorable thing that she says all the time is, "Oh, hunkey dorey!" from "Christmas Eve on Sesame Street." It is so funny when she says it! She sings all the time too, and learns songs just as quickly as her big sisters. She amazes me at how well she can sing the lyrics of songs.
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