Happy Fathers Day

to the best Dad I know, my wonderful husband and father to my two girls!

With Baby Analese.



With Baby Mariele.



With both of his doting daughters, recently.

Peace & Exhaustion

They are both tired from the whole strep throat ordeal. This photo was taken about 8:00 this morning! Mariele woke up as I was leaving the room with the laundry basket about 7:30. I blew her a kiss and told her I would be right back. She blew me a kiss and apparently laid her little head back down and went to sleep. Analese has slept in the "sidecar" for the past couple of nights since she has been sick. No fever this morning! Now if I can just get 9 more days of antibiotic into her. The bribe is Cherry Ludens cough drops (aka candy)!

Exhaustion...

I am so tired. I've been up since dark thirty a.m. Analese was scheduled for her first sleepover at her little best buddy "Tee-ta's" house last night. We took her over there around 6:00 and the kids all went swimming. After half an hour or so of swimming, Analese got out of the pool and told me she was VERY cold. She was shivering violently. I wrapped her in a towel and held her for a few minutes. As her hair dried I could tell that her skin was burning up. Yng Yng got out the thermometer and it read 102. So that was the end of the sleepover. We brought her home and she had fever all night long. I got her to the ped as early as I could this morning, and the diagnosis was strep throat and a UTI. The UTI did not surprise me. She has been complaining of her pee pee hurting, and we gave her lots of cranberry juice yesterday. The strep throat totally surprised me, though. She has not even complained of a sore throat! And usually if her throat is even a little sore, she lets us know because she likes cough drops. She did tell the PA that her throat was "a little bit sore." So Analese is sick and contagious and mommy is exhausted.

Now, here are some pics from a few days ago at dinnertime, since I very rarely blog without sharing pics. Mariele was having fun with her corn on the cob.




Now, both of my kids are sleeping. I know what I should be doing instead of blogging, so I am signing out now.

Show Week

Yesterday was Analese's dance and gymnastics show. This ended her last semester of dance for awhile. We will be doing gymnastics exclusively in the summer and fall. I had her pose in her dance outfit at home before we left.



Mariele sat in the stroller during the show. I'm so glad she was good, because I was able to get some photos and video.



Analese did awesome on the beam! Unfortunately the photography was challenging since the beam was right by those big windows, and my flash was only flashing intermittently since I forgot to change the flash batteries. Her landing was superb!




Here she is on (and off) the bars.




Then she did her dance routines in the dance room. I took videos of those, which I will try to share later. The awards ceremony was at the end. She was quite proud of herself, as always!

Project & Bath Time Sillies...

Analese just loves doing her "projects" lately. This afternoon while Mariele was napping, Analese asked to do a project. She wanted to make a surprise for Mariele to give to her when she woke from her nap. She asked me for paper. I asked her if she wanted white or colored paper. She said she wanted yellow paper, because yellow is Mariele's favorite color in the whole wide world. I'm not sure how she knows this, but it is not the first time that she has interpreted for her baby sister. Anyway, she sat in her desk with the paper, scissors, glue and a pencil and worked busily for several minutes while I attempted to slay the laundry beast. This was the finished product. It says Analese hearts (a heart drawing) Mariele. She asked me at one point in this project to remind her how to spell Mariele. I asked her what shape it was supposed to be. Her reply? A T, mommy! Like, duh!



Tonight they got a little silly during bath time. Here is Mariele being super good-natured about big sister smearing bubbles all over her head and face.



And Analese loves getting a shampoo mohawk! I couldn't get her to look at the camera because she was too busy checking herself out in the mirror.



Thanks for the get well wishes. I feel so much better today than I did yesterday. I just detest airplane bugs!

Freckles & a Busted Lip...

The past few days Mariele has had a runny nose. I have been wondering whether it was a result of the teething or a bug that she caught on the airplane. Today I confirmed that it was, in fact, a bug. I have it now too, since she so generously shares her little germs with me. I woke up this morning feeling like I either had a severe case of allergies or a bug. I'm pretty sure it is a bug, because I took about a 3 and a half hour afternoon nap (THANK YOU LEE). After popping two tylenol, I went into a very strange dreamy sleep. I think I totally needed it, though. Right after I woke up and was thinking about going downstairs, I heard Mariele screaming bloody murder. Evidently she fell on her face and busted her lip on the floor. Poor baby.



On a happier note, I think Analese's freckles are just the cutest things ever. I got a close-up shot of her sweet summer freckles.



I love my kiddos!



Edited to add: Analese likes the picture of her with "sparkles" on her face. That is what she calls freckles: sparkles! That makes me smile so much:)

Our Kentucky Fried Adventure

We got to drop a pin on another state on the map when we went out for a visit in Kentucky the past few days. It was the first trip to Kentucky for our family, and I have to say that Kentucky is a very pretty state. I noticed how beautiful the landscape was as we were flying into the Bluegrass airport. We were in horse country and the landscape was composed of lots of pretty horse pasture land. Everything was very green and lush and there are lots of rolling hills. We spent a few days with our friends that we had not seen in almost a year. They took us to a beautiful park with a great playground for the kids. They got to enjoy some time in the sandbox. As a side note, Mariele was kind of a holy terror the entire trip due to the fact that she is cutting three teeth all at once. So the expression on her face was about as pleasant as we could get.




They all got to go out on the lake in the pedal boats. Analese was excited for the boat ride.





Mariele was giving five from the bridge.



We got to toss the frisbee around.



Like I said before, Mariele was just not the happiest camper.



Trish and Ally. Aren't they pretty?



Analese and Allyson played dress up later that afternoon. Analese revered Allyson very much. She really likes girls who are a few years older that she is.



The next day we visited the Louisville zoo. Of course my kids will not actually look at the camera.



We got up close and personal with the giraffes.





Analese even got to feed them!



Here is a handsome lion wondering why he can't get the giraffes on one side and the zebras on the other.




Mariele's favorite part was the petting zoo. She really perked up for the petting zoo. She really loves animals!




This zoo had a water park for the kids! There was even a baby section. Here's the little swimsuit model.



We had a great day at the zoo, but we were more than ready to head on over to the Cheesecake Factory after it was all said and done. Again, my kids refuse to look at the camera during a group shot.