Summary Snippets

• Friday Focus has gotten away from me once again.  I have the best of intentions but life gets in the way.
• Miss Merida is gone.  They did a two week trial at her new school, just to make sure she was old enough to run with the big kids and the new schedule.  I knew she'd have no problem, and I didn't really WANT her to have problems, but I was still really hoping she'd come back at the end of the trial.  But of course she's gone for good.  Makes me happy she's doing well but I'm still sad.
• Merryweather is even more sad.  She's the only one up some mornings now and she kind of wanders around looking for a playmate.  We're working on trying to do some more big kid stuff for her but so far she's not super interested to do it by herself.
• We have some sweet new friends!  I need names for them still, but we have a new teeny one and a one year old who's dropped in before but is now full time.  They are settling in nicely.
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• Bernard's last day is today.  He's off to join his big brother at that school now that he's turned one.  I can't believe how fast the time with him went by!
• The parents of the new little one use an app called Baby Connect to keep track of what's going on with her and they added us to the account.  Instead of writing on the whiteboard, I log her activity on the ipad and they can check it from work and see how her day is going.  I wasn't sure if I would like it, but it turns out that I really love it.  It's fun to already know how she slept, and see when mom pumps so I can work on getting her to eat near the same schedule.  Mom and Dad like being able to see how her day is going in real time.  It's got places to add as much or as little as you want- you can track moods and activities and food and poop and sleep.  I am surprised by how much I'm enjoying it. 

• We've got two more new ones waiting to join us- one in August and one in January.  We got to meet our August arrival this week.  She's just a couple weeks old right now and is so snuggly and cute!
• Anna and I are seriously thinking about celebrating half Christmas next Wednesday, just for something fun and different to do.  If you come in and the decorations are up and the music is playing, just roll with it.  :)

Friday Focus: Vanellope

Vanellope turned one last month and her birthday theme was "Vanellope in One-derland".  Of course she had to wear an Alice dress.  This wasn't during daycare but it's so darn cute that I had to show her off.  I loved this one especially because it looks like the chair is too big and she just drank the "drink me" potion to become too small or something.  So fun!

Back at school, she finds all kinds of fun things to keep herself busy.  The Viking hats continue to be popular items.  Best $2.99 I ever spent, I think!  I love how pleased with herself she is here.  (I also really like the contrast between these pictures- it's just like the movie, with uncomfortable Princess Vanellope in fancy clothes vs. the sassy racer who's comfy in her hat and jammies.)

Here she is with Bernard.  She was trying to put the hat on his head too but all the pictures I tried to take of that came out really blurry.  It was super cute though.  You'll just have to take my word for it.

And here's her new "twin", Flynn.  He started a few weeks ago and they look really alike, especially from the back.  They're only about six weeks apart in age and they play really well together!

Spaghetti and blueberries for lunch was a big hit.  She's getting better about eating more things.  Still pretty hit or miss, but when it's a hit, she'll eat more than you ever thought possible for somebody as little as she is.

She's getting pretty close to taking steps here.  Haven't seen her do it yet, but her mama says it's happened a few times at home.  She'll stand up in the middle of the room and just look around wildly with a big smile.  Sometimes it kind of reminds me of a meerkat scouting out danger.  :)  Right now she still thinks crawling is a lot faster though, so if she decides she needs to be somewhere quick, she drops and is off like a shot. 

Vanellope is Anna's girl in a BIG way.  She tolerates me enough to be happy to come to me in the mornings, which is definitely a good thing.  Once Anna gets here though, I am chopped liver.  It's only occasionally that she decides my lap is better than the cold hard floor.  If she can't have Anna, I'm usually not an acceptable substitute unless I have food that looks good.  It makes me laugh how often the kids will pick one of us to LOVE.  A lot of them do it, and sometimes they switch.  I suppose most kids do that with their parents too though, so it's reasonable.  Spending a lot of time with two people, it makes sense that you feel closer to one than the other at different stages.

Oh, and she still hates painting.  We're starting the Very Hungry Caterpillar unit again, and I had to hold her hand around the brush while she yelled and slapped it on the paper.  Not to paint the leaf, you understand, but in violent protest of the entire process.  The end result was paint on paper though, so I'm counting it as progress!  :)

Be My Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day!  We spent yesterday and today getting little cards made for the parents.  I'm a sucker for footprints and I figure I can't be the only one.  Most of our people are too little to color, but it's fun to paint their feet so they can make a card.  Families love it.

 Merryweather went first and thought it was the funniest thing.  She laughed the whole time and then I had to do everybody else on the sly so she didn't help WAY more than I needed.

Mufasa was pretty chilled out the whole time- he let me do it without any protest but thought it was a little weird.  He stayed still though so his footprints came out really clear.

 Miss Merida's foot, making a cameo appearance.

 I had to practically hogtie Maid Marian to keep her hands off her feet.  She wanted to eat the paint SO BADLY.  I needed about six more hands for this job, especially since Merryweather snuck up behind me and grabbed the paintbrush off the table.  She dropped it in my lap and I still have red paint all over me.

Then she got all kinds of offended that I wouldn't let her grab the rest of the supplies so I had to console her before we could carry on.  I love the way Maid Marian has her foot stuck straight out and is still staring at it even after I washed it.  She can't quite figure out what I did to her.

While the littles were napping today I took Merryweather and Merida to eat lunch with O'Malley at school.  The weather hasn't been nice enough for a walk in forever and they talked and laughed the whole way there. 

 I got wise in the afternoon and put Bernard in the jumper to do his painting.  He decorated the floor while I went to get the wipes.

He had a good time too.

Last but not least was Vanellope.  (I watched Wreck-it Ralph with my kids again tonight and she's so great.  Big smile, sassy little attitude, makes you happy.  It works.)

She put up with the first foot, although she let me know she thought the whole thing was weird and possibly a little scary.  We didn't take pictures of the second foot.  Girl got angry.  :)  But they all turned out really cute.  Happy Valentine's Day and I'm sorry if there is a little paint left between your kid's toes tonight!

Aw Shucks Guys

Y'all should have told me you were actually waiting for me to blog!  Because I pretty much thought nobody ever read it- not like you comment frequently.  :)  I really do like the feedback- it makes it easier to write regularly when I think somebody cares about reading.  Mufasa's dad texted me today and referred to him as Mufasa, which made me laugh.  I couldn't come up with a good quote back to him on the fly.  But clearly he read!  YAY!  And Maid Marian's mom (HI THERE!) mentioned that she stalks the blog.  Maybe it's hugely narcissistic of me, but I'm super flattered.  Just for that, extra pics of your babies.

She holds her own!  At least for a few seconds anyway.

When it is really cold outside they bring Mufasa in this bear suit.  I squeal every time- I just can't help it.  He's so darn cute and extra snuggly when he wears it.

Okay.  *clapping hands briskly* moving on, I need blog names for several of the munchkins, and also for The Assistant.  It is getting difficult to write about the day with unnamed people.  OH!  I could call the twins Phineas and Ferb.  I've used so many names up that I'm going to have to branch out into TV soon anyway and I like that for them.  Done. 

Then we have this sweet new little guy.  I think I'm going to call him Bernard, like in the Rescuers.  I like the way Eva Gabor says it.  (I did have a Bianca a couple years ago, but since I'm fairly certain nobody but me is paying attention to the horror of having two different families using names from the same movie, we'll just brush that aside.....)

Meet Bernard!

Here we have the serious look...

And also the smile.  Cutie pie.

Two more girls to name, but I'm still mulling over options... good night.  :)