day 4 barely

I took this when I finally got Maddie back to sleep last night.  She is officially sick.  And I am officially tired!  BTW  she is wide awake on my lap right now and it is nearly midnight!  Ah, if kids weren't so darned cute......

 needless to say I drank a lot of coffee today.  Good thing we buy the stuff at Costco!

 We did manage to make a yummy breakfast.  Yes it was from a tube, but I did spice it up a bit!

Add a little homemade (by amber) plum jam...

 then bake and you have a delicious breakfast that goes great with large cups of coffee.  We also put strawberries in the rolls, which surprisingly turned out great!

The rest of the day is a bit of a blur, but I did get a ton of packing done, and Maddie helped.  

 Dinner was a HUGE hit.  Penne, pesto and peas.  She had thirds!

 And of course desert followed by running in circles on the couch while we watched monsters inc.  Somehow I always fail to remember how any kind of sugar turns to instant energy in this little girl!

Ah, well here's hoping for a bit of rest tonight!

Day Three

Day three and I am already keeping my camera a little closer...thus the extra photos.  I clean all of the toys constantly (only because Chloe is sick) and realized I should just let Chloe clean them while cleaning her little mitts at the same time.  This went on for about 30 minutes. That is pretty great for first thing in the morning!

Maddie supervised

Next came breakfast.  Pesto eggs, hashbrowns and strawberries.  Notice the shirt is missing- Chloe was drenched after the toy washing.

Maddie enjoyed a teething biscuit

Next Maddie went down for a nap and Chloe got her first steam bath of the day.  She likes to hang out in her bathrobe for as long as I let her.  It is pretty adorable.

Once Maddie woke up we loaded up the charriott and went for a walk around the hood.  Chloe loves pushing!

 Check out the snow height!  Crazy how deep it is still even though it has been melting for weeks now.

 We found a snow cave and Chloe checked it out.

 We also collected little twigs and bits to look at later.

 Lunch

----Bothe girls napped! (one and half hours)------

Then back to playing

 Checking out the nature collection that I forgot about until now.  We looked at all of the things she found and talked about them, their names and how they are different.  I told Chloe this is called bark, and which of course became "Woof" to her.  It took me a bit to figure out why she was calling it that....so funny how I would never have connected the word "bark" with "woof" in this context!

 Snack time.  yummy baby puffs.  Madeline is just now figuring out how to get them into her mouth on her own,

 Oh yeah and I am still trying to clear out and pack up the house.  Between following Chloe around to clean everything she touches, and keeping the girls apart (torture to them both), it is shocking I was even able to do this today!  

 It is now just after nine at night and I am dead tired!  If I didn't promise a daily post I would already be snuggled in bed.  Yeah I am amazingly lame I know, but man this Mom business takes it out of me!  Now just cross your fingers that the girls have a good nights sleep---aka I only need 2 cups of coffee tomorrow!

DayTwo

Chloe is feeling better today!  Yay.  She is still on quarantine from touching Maddie or anything else but she seems back to her energetic self.

Playing with her doll house and Dora matching cards.

 Maddie woke up early from her nap (joy) to help me with some tax stuff, aka chew on a magazine and anything else I let her get away with :).  I am itemizing and valuing all of our 2011 donations and inputting them into excel to forward on to the accountant.  Love excel, hate the hassle of figuring out what a PS2 with games and guitar hero would be worth to salvation army.  Or the list of literally thousands of other things we donated.......I have also come to the conclusion that we have too much stuff.  We really gave away ALL that stuff and still have all these boxes left to move?  It is crazy how much stuff one little house holds!

 We also made it out to Costco to pick up those last home items that I just can't live without until we move next week.  Chloe was along for the frozen yogurt and pizza :)

 Maddie hung out in the sling with me, and she loved it!  I am so glad I pulled it out for another try when I was going thru all of her baby stuff.  If she stays this happy on all shopping trips I will have hit the jackpot!

 I mentioned she likes to pull herself up!  This is a "two-for" as she can pull herself up on it and it also doubles as a steel drum.  

day two- check!!!

Post a Day

Well I am going to give it a try anyway- my goal is a week!  Instead of writing about things that happened in the past I will try to be in the here and now.  Update:  Madeline is now crawling, sitting up and pulling herself up onto everything!  And LOVING IT.  

 Poor Chloe is sick.  I took her to this place called Arctic Playground thinking it would be good to get her out more since she is no longer in daycare..... I should have left when I saw the kid with snot running down his face and the nasty coughing parents, but Chloe was having so much fun I thought it would be okay to let her stay for a little while if I just wiped down everything she played with.  It was not okay :(  I should have stuck with my first instinct, and not worried about being the psycho clean freak Mom who never ever lets her daughter have any fun.  Sorry Chloe!

 She is managing to have fun even though she is sick!  Unlimited movies, juice and anything else she wants to eat, plus two steam baths a day- what could be better?

Only one rule- DO NOT TOUCH MADELINE!  Or translated more nicely for Chloe "Honey don't let Madeline touch you.  She doesn't know you are sick.  We will make this special fort up here for you where she can't get you or your toys!  How comfy!"

Remembering the sunshine

We are now firmly back in the reality of melting snow, jackets and gloves.  What better time to daydream about Hawaii?  These are the last of the vacation pics, a little jumbled but all inclusive :)

Maddie napping poolside :)  She also napped this way on walks.  We tried to be very careful to keep her protected from the sun the entire time.  She always had a hat (except for a few one minute photo shoots), and ALWAYS ALWAYS had sunscreen.  Actually we all did which is why we didn't burn :) or tan :(

 Somebody is up chilling poolside, about to go for a dip!

 Andrew with both girls in the pool :)  They both loved the water.

 A little snack out on the lanai.  We ate all of our meals outside, and it was wonderful!

 Strolling through town on our way to a yummy lunch.

Nose kisses at lunch. 

 There was fish feeding every morning at the resort, and it was a big big hit!  We went many many times.  

Chloe was even able to touch the fish!

 Lazy morning....at 5 am.  Yes every single day the girls woke up between 5 and 5:30 am.  Chloe would get up and quietly turn the door knob to our room and climb in bed. Not a bad wakeup call. 

Who could resist this adorable face!

Maddie hung out in a big play yard out on the Lanai quite a bit.  You can see she didn't mind.

We did have a few rainy days, and one of those days we visited the aquarium.  It was awesome!

Maddie loved the fish!

Chloe loved the sharks.   "Look a scary shark!" If you cant tell she is running back and forth across the huge expanse of glass pointing them out.  

Chloe got to go to the gift store at the end to pick out something to take home....We caved and let her pick two.  She named them right away:  Here is Cutter.

This is Allen; re-named Syrup Allen.  No one can say she isn't creative!

A few bonus pics of Maddie being her silly self.

Mmm pineapple core is also a baby chew toy.  We cut the fibrous core into strips and popped it into the freezer for later use.  Full disclosure: the original idea was swizzle sticks for our Mai Tai's, but that only happened once since the pineapple were much more popular with Maddie and Chloe.  Chloe did use it as a swizzle stick for her POG :)  

And this was our last day.  It was more than raining....it was what I imagine being in a hurricane might be like. 

On the bright side it is much easier to leave paradise when it doesn't much resemble paradise.  I can say it is really nice to be home.  We are moving in less than 2 weeks, and boxing up all the stuff has actually been fun!  We are very excited to get into our new space!  The house is bigger and much more modern in architecture than what we are in now (which isn't a huge stretch).  I can't believe it, but we have actually been in our house for 7 years now!  It all started with a two year plan.......now I am an Alaskan, and loving it. 

Before I know it I will be posting pics of the move!  So exciting!!!