Mariele's new table and a rare sighting....

I got Mariele the little table for our school time. More and more she is just feeling left out while I do school with Analese. She wants to feel like she is involved, so this was my solution.



Mariele is in lots of teething pain this week. I can't believe we still have five teeth to cut (nine if I count the two year molars, which I may as well count). Mariele teething is complete torture for me, her and everyone within a five mile radius of her. I don't know if this has anything to do with the rare sighting. Apparently there are still some old Analese pacis lying around, because today Mariele found one and has been walking around (and lounging around) like this.





Mariele has never been the least bit interested in sucking a paci. She still lost interest in this one after a few moments. She is just not a paci kid. Now I will have a few photos in my photo library that will be more of a differentiation challenge.

Analese hopped in for a couple of shots.

Back to Normal....

Although we celebrated Analese's birthday for about 3 weeks straight, we are finally back to normal around here. I'm playing catch-up this week after having company last week. We are back to doing school and trying to keep up with our day to day lives. The birthday princess got to open many more gifts when Meemee and Mammaw arrived.



I call this photo "the tossing of the paper."



Mariele got this little wagon full of lego blocks. She loves for Analese to give her a ride in the wagon.



The day after Meemee and Mammaw arrived, we shifted the birthday focus off of Analese and celebrated Mammaw's 91st birthday. She even got to enjoy some hot tub time.




My mom got the matching monkey shirts for the girls at her place of employment, Arkansas Children's Hospital.

But I thought Analese's birthday was over....

That is PROBABLY what you are thinking as you are reading this blog post. BUT - the celebration continues. Practically all month long! Grandpa Bob rolled into town yesterday is his white car (the white car always impresses Analese for some reason). He came bearing a sack full of birthday gifts for our little spoiled princess. She was DELIGHTED with the Barbie fishing pole. She has had her eye on this for quite some time.



Even Mariele got a present!



Analese thought the silly singing card was a hoot!



So my kids are now beyond spoiled. Thanks Gramps.

And Meemee and Mammaw are on their way also. They will be in this evening bearing their own bag of birthday gifts. My mammaw's 91st birthday is tomorrow, so we will be having more birthday fun! Lots of balloons and spaghetti and carrot cake!

Analese cast her fishing rod out onto the pool this morning, while Daddy and Grandpa did some repairs to the pool deck. The fishing line has a little butterfly on the end of it, not a fish hook. Lee has done enough anesthesia for kids with fish hooks in their eyes and other body parts (including one that went through the eye and into the brain) that he is super paranoid about taking her "real" fishing. But for now she is quite content with the butterfly fishing in the pool.

Happy Mothers Day!

Other than a case of the post vaccine sickies, which I will explain later, we are having a nice and relaxed Mothers Day weekend here. I feel very blessed with my two wonderful kids. Here they are, the reasons I am called a mother.









And COMPLETELY unrelated to Mother's Day, here is a photo of Dudio, our hospice kitty. We have been giving him end of life comfort measures for a couple of years now. He may well live to be an extremely old cat. He is about 13 years old now and most of his teeth have been surgically removed due to lymphocytic/plasmocytic stomatitis gingivitis complex. He loves to get high on the catnip in our garden. He really does have a great life.



Back to this weekend, yesterday night was Parent Survival Night at The Little gym. Analese LOVES to go to PSN. But following our afternoon swim, she just seemed kind of draggy. She ended up falling asleep. She woke up on her own right around the time we were supposed to leave. We suggested that maybe she should stay home since she was so tired. She cried and cried and said that she wanted to go to Little gym. I had no idea that she was heading toward fever, so we took her to The Little gym. I told her teacher that she seemed extra tired today, and she could lie down in her sleeping bag (the kids bring their sleeping bags to cuddle up in for movie time) if she wanted to. She was perfectly happy when I left. She was running into the gym and blowing me kisses. So Lee and Mariele and I went out to dinner and went for a brisk stroll down the waterway. We went to pick Analese up at 9:30. She was fast asleep in her sleeping bag on the floor with kids stepping all over her as their parents were picking them up. I reached down to wake her, and she felt like fire. As soon as we got home, I put her in her nightgown and brushed her teeth. She started crying as she was sitting on the potty. I think it hit her at that moment just how crappy she felt. We gave her Tylenol (generic, of course) and tucked her into bed beside us. She also woke up with fever this morning. We are allowing her to convalesce on the couch today while watching Tivo'ed PBS kids programs. The rest of today will have to be at her pace. The nurse at the peds office warned me that the fever could happen up to a week later following Analese's four year vaccinations.

Analese's birthday dinner and more.....

Yesterday we took Analese to open play time at Pump it Up. It was neat because we were the only people there! Then we met our friends at Red Robin for her birthday dinner. Red, herself, made an appearance.





Today Analese had her 4 year well child visit. As part of this visit, she had vision and hearing screenings. She passed the hearing screening, but her right eye was slightly weaker than expected. We have been referred to a pediatric ophthalmologist and she has an appointment next Monday. She does not have the best eye genetics. She weighed in at 37.5 pounds and was 41 inches tall. The bad part of this visit was the "poky medicine." She had to get three shots in her legs. She was so brave, but I don't think she fully realized what was happening. She cried, of course. And she had fresh waves of tears for the next hour or so. When we left the doctors office, we took her birthday money to Toys R Us for a shopping spree. That perked her back up a little.

Analese's 4th Birthday!

Analese is celebrating her 4th birthday today with her family. When it was close enough to plan a party this year, I realized that Lee was on the schedule to work all weekend on Analese's birthday weekend. It was really too late to switch that around. The weekend before seemed too early to celebrate, and the weekend after is Mother's Day. So to make a long story short, we are not having an official birthday party on her birthday this year, although we are having a special birthday dinner at Red Robin with friends tomorrow on Lee's day off, following some play time at Pump It Up. I still tried very hard to make today a special birthday for Analese. This was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs.



However, Lee was called out to the hospital early this morning before Analese woke up. He really wanted to be there when she got the bike, so I gave her this decoy present when she woke up.



We've had lots of fun blowing up balloons today. By the time we got dressed and even before we had breakfast, Lee came back home. She got her birthday bike. She was actually surprised about this one!



I baked this great mermaid cake!



The instructive video came from Howdini.com. This was fun to make, and pretty easy too!

We had a nice birthday lunch of homemade pizza and mermaid cake.





Overall it has been a very relaxing day. While it may have been preferable to have an actual birthday party with other kids, the family celebration was quite relaxing and laid back. When Mariele wakes from her nap, we are all going to the park to let Analese practice riding her bicycle around the sidewalk. I think she has had a great birthday so far.