3 Birthday Parties, 1 Day. A Facebook 'Live' Journey

Captain's Log:  And so it begins...3 bday parties, 1 day... I'm going to need a red bull.

Ensign's log: first hour has gone well, with the exception of a game stealing her coins. Cake time!

1 down, 2 to go

Ensign log, hour 2 1/2: 2nd party, and all must be well. I only see the occasional streaks bounce past

Captain's report....Ensign had locked herself in the restroom and refuses to come out. We are currently taking resumes for newly opened ensign position.


Ensign's log hour 3 1/2: Captain managed to talk me out of the bathroom with pizza as the persuasion. Sufficiently happy again. Oh! Cake time!

Ensign log, hours 4-6 1/2: rest time. Overslept and now we're scrambling to get out the door and the sleep marks and drool off of our faces. Draining the caffeinated beverages as quickly as we can. 2 parties down, one more to go. We WILL dominate the day!

Ensign log, hour 8: I'm abandoning ship. Best of luck to The Captain and Torpedo. Oh! Cake time!

Ensign's log, hour 8 1/2: I got my bonus!

Ensign's log, hour 9: 3 birthday parties complete, uncountable friends, and even a couple of new ones for me. I'd say today was a success, and we're truly blessed.

And meltdown in 3...2...1...

Brylee And The Case Of The Missing Monkey

For Christmas, Brylee got a recycled monkey from our Playgroup Christmas Exchange.  The thing is her favorite thing in the entire world!

So, one night we couldn't find George the Monkey (I should have named him Micky, Mike, Peter, or Davy...) and surprisingly, B slept through the night with another toy instead.  But of course, the next morning, he was the first thing she looked for.  So, the hunt began again...

He wasn't in the toy box, under the couches or beds.  He wasn't at Oma's and Opa's, or in the cars.  Then it dawned on me:  Brylee loves her racing turtle.  And to stuff random stuff in there, too.  So we checked there...

And YAY!!!  We found Curious George!

Thank goodness, because I don't know if we would  have been able to find another one of him!

Brylee Update

Yes!  She has grown!

Her favorite color:

Oh my how she loves this color!  Which makes it even more interesting because it's the same favorite color of her daddy, so now when they play games, they 'fight' over who has the yellow game piece.

Her favorite character?

(image found here)

On a daily basis, she loves to wear her Rapunzel dress.  And when it's on, she insists on being called "Rapunzel".

Her favorite movies currently?

She also loves Tangled, Alice In Wonderland, Shrek, and...of all things...

Her favorite food is pizza, macaroni and cheese, corn dogs, chicken nuggets, and tonight, she ate a great helping of spaghetti.  While she is a very picky eater, she is starting to get better and eating a lot more.  It's only taken 3 years to get her to start gaining some weight!

She loves to read, and right now she enjoys Dr. Seuss books, and her T and Poppy got her the HighLights magazine for the second year now.

We try to go to playgroup regularly with a great group of parents and kids.  We have been invited to a playdate at someone's house on a weekly basis, but unfortunately, they like to spend it outdoors, and we aren't snow/winter prepared, but now with the mud season coming up, we'll have some fun there as well.  We started going back to the library for story time there, and on Thursdays, we go to the local dance center where they let the little ones run around and dance and play with the gymnastics equipment.

She loves to play with balloons, most specifically, sitting on them.  Most Mylar balloons don't last more than a week for her because she abuses it to no end.  But still she loves them.

She is definitely still an ambidextrous little girl, which I'm sure makes my mom a very happy T.  Just what we need...another one of 'them'.  ;o)

There is so much stuff that I'm missing, but as I remember them, I will add posts.  It's amazing how fast she is growing, and how behind I have gotten.  I blame it on a number of things, but I will try to be better.

And Don't Let Me Forget To Add....

Over a month ago (March 20th to be exact), Brylee decided to get into a fight with the bench that is part of our (rental) dinner table.  She slid underneath it to try to get to Chester...and somehow managed to pull the bench over on her little hand.

Unfortunately, more damage was done to her little hand than the bench, but I think the most hurt was my heart.  The poor little thing...you can see from the pictures below how her middle finger was the most affected, turning a nasty black and blue.

Thanks to Jon, a friend who happens to be a paramedic, he gave me advice on what point to take her to the ER (no urgent care except for evenings) and things to do to help her hand feel better.  Within days, B was looking at her fingers, saying 'boo boo', but refusing to leave the band-aids on.

She lost her fingernail a couple of weeks ago, but doesn't seemed bothered at all with this.  What a brave little girl!

Big Night Take II

April has been good to our little town here in Maine!  On Sunday evening, we got to experience our second Big Night in 2012, which is the night that the weather is perfect for amphibians to try to migrate to their vernal pool to reproduce:  this particular vernal pool though is located by a busy road, so we help the critters move across to try to keep them from being squashed.  It proved to be fruitful for the little critters that decided to wait to cross the road this night.

According to the leaders of the night, we helped over 12 spotted salamanders, 20 spring peepers, a handful of wood frogs, green frogs and bullfrogs, and a four-toed salamander!

We had a police officer walk with us as we 'hunted', and at one point, he pulled over a vehicle that was trying to drive past, only to  later have another police car go down to where they were...and even a little later than that, the walking police officer retrieved his car and went whizzing by back to the scene!

I unfortunately didn't get to see many peepers, green frogs, bullfrogs, or the four-toed salamander as I ended up straggling behind and helping a couple of salamanders.  Cary and Brylee, further ahead than I was with our friends Nancy and Kyle, saw more stuff!

You can't really see them, but this picture is of Cary and B:  both real troopers in going along on this late, chilly, and rainy night!

This is how we found B when we got home.  I just wish it wasn't so blurry when I took it, because she woke up immediately after I took it...

Easter 2012

Here are some pictures from B's Easter egg hunt:

And a picture of the beautiful colorful eggs I forgot to take with us to hunt (and have as deviled eggs...which may have been smart to not have on Easter Sunday...)

 

And B got some fun goodies from her Oma and Opa, including these little rocket launchers.  

 

Two Days Of Pre-Easter...And A Day Of Storms

April 2nd:

Our typical day.  Wake up, eat breakfast, play, eat lunch, nap, play... you get the idea.  Except it wasn't typical with our Playgroup's Easter Egg hunt!  Oh fun!

So many eggs!  So much fun!  We took 42 filled eggs to the group to walk away with 14...but this momma isn't complaining...we have so many more from B's t, poppy, and granny j, not to mention I have several to dye today!

April 3rd:

Tuesday, things were a bit more stressful for this Texas-to-Maine transfer:

A package arrived here from my parents that they wanted to watch B open that evening, so on my way to pick up the package from Cary (he wasn't going to be home in time to skype with my family due to late nights with tax season) when I received a message from a friend stating that there have been reports of 5 tornadoes in Dallas.

And of course my reaction was, 5?  today?

 

(image found on washingtonpost.com)

On my way home, I called my dad and asked how it was out his way and he was on the way to the fire station to watch the weather.  And as soon as I got home, I tuned into wfaa.com and watched with stress as tornado warnings kept being given for all of the towns I knew, video footage of tornadoes ripping through the DFW area, and trying to make sure all of my family and friends were safe.

By the end of the day, a dozen tornadoes hit the area, a large portion of my friends and family had to take cover twice, there was hail damage on several vehicles, and my heart had a workout without even turning on Prayfit...

The biggest blessing is that there were no serious injuries to anyone that was hit by the storms (maybe a broken neck?  that's pretty serious though...).  Homes and businesses, and 18 wheelers were damaged, but much more easily replaced than a loved one.

So the evening was much more relaxing and allowed us to experience this:

And on Wednesday, I got this beautiful bouquet:

 

I joked with mom when I called her to say 'thank you' that I was glad that nothing bad had happened to my family with the storms the previous day and then received these from the next...

But truly, no matter what possessions and packages I receive, nothing compares to that of my family and friends, and the storms on Tuesday reminded me of what really is important to me.  I thank God for keeping all of them safe!