My Babies are Growing Up!

I know growing is a fact of life. Time constantly moves by - sometimes more slowly than other times - but it's constantly going. Some days I wish I had a remote control to either fast forward or pause time, mostly just pause time and keep things the way they are, keep my girls how they are right now. So, last night Calvin and I went to a three-year-old preschool meeting for Chloe and a kindergarten meeting for Aubrey. I've been aware of the fact that both girls will be going to school for forever, but somehow at the meeting last night, it made it all the more real. Someone said to me when they found out about the meetings, that I'm going to have two kids in school. Enter the remote, where I can pause time. I don't want to have two kids in school. I don't want them to grow up yet. I know Aubrey's in school right now, but it's not full time and I'm good with that. I love that she can go and learn and still be home with me for most of the day. I'm just not so sure about this all-day kindergarten thing. I know she has to go. I know she'll love it. But I'm just having such a hard time letting go. I know this is just the first step of many times where I have to let her go and spread her wings and see how she does. But I'm dreading it. Not just for Chloe, who's going to have such a hard time without her sister to play with. But for me too. Frankly I will just miss her. She's such an awesome kid! She's helpful, kind, sweet, caring, thoughtful, and great to have around. Sitting in that meeting last night, I was both excited for her and all the things she's going to learn, but so sad for me and the time that I'm losing with her. It made me so sad! Thank goodness we drove separately or Calvin would have had to deal with me and my tears on the way home. I'm sure it's partly hormones, but it's also just the fact of letting go. She's my oldest, my first. It will be great for her, but not easy on me. But we'll manage. We'll go forward. I'll make it through and curb my sadness so that she can be excited and happy. As for Chloe, it's hard to believe that she will be in school too. I feel like it wasn't that long ago that she was just born. Now she's going to school too. Like I said about Aubrey, I'm okay with preschool. It's only two mornings a week. I can handle that. She'll hopefully be with her grandma (who's the aide), which makes it all the more easier. And she'll make some new friends, which will hopefully help her not miss her sister so much. Add to that the fact that I'll have a new baby to care for and distract me and I think I'm okay with her and school. She'll still spend most of her time with me. Thank goodness we have months before all this new school business starts. My goal is to make this time with my girls count, before it all goes quickly by.

Girls' Birthday Party

This past weekend we celebrated the girls' birthdays with Calvin's family. With their birthdays being so close together, we usually just have one party with family to celebrate both of them. I took the girls to the party store about a month ago to pick out what theme they wanted for their party. Aubrey really wanted My Little Pony, but Chloe wanted Dora. I told them that they had to work together to pick one theme. Chloe was pretty adamant about having Dora, and Aubrey (who's usually really good about giving in) decided that Dora would be fine with her too. Instead of buying invitations, I had the girls pick out Dora stickers and then make their own invitations. I also had Aubrey help me pick out which Dora she wanted on the cake. They were definitely excited! Luckily for me, my sister Hannah and her husband came this past weekend for a baby shower, so she was around on Saturday to help me make food and work on the cake. While it was fun to make, it took forever to decorate! Dora has a lot of colors on her, which means that I had to change frosting colors and tips a lot! In the end, it turned out good (although Calvin said it looked like Dora was in a cave since the cake dipped in the middle) - good enough for me anyways. I don't claim to be a professional cake decorator or anything. The whole party was fun for the girls who had a blast playing with their cousins and opening presents.

The Dora cake

Happy birthday girls!
Opening presents

Chloe's new sunglasses from Aunt Kathy and Uncle John - she lost her old purple ones and had been wanting new ones

One of the few things on Aubrey's list was UNO attack. UNO is probably her favorite game, so she was so excited to get this.

Chloe loved the sunglasses so much, she continued to wear them off and on for the rest of the day.

Blowing out the candles

The three littlest girl cousins eating cake together - they were too cute sitting together like this.

Baby Bump Update

26 weeks 3 days

Happy Valentine's Day!

Aubrey was so excited about today. She was excited for her Valentine's Day party at school and the fact that this year she got to "mail" the valentines she brought for her friends in their valentines boxes. Last year she didn't get to do this, so she couldn't wait to get to school and do this. I love the fact that she loves school so much and can't wait to go. She's like a little sponge - constantly absorbing things that they learn and do in school. It's so awesome to watch and see how much she's learned this year. It's amazing! Chloe, of course, missed her while she was at school and was happy to have her home. Aubrey, being the awesome big sister that she is, volunteered to share the candy that she got at school with her little sister. She reminded Chloe that Valentine's Day is about showing love and that's how she could show love to her sister. She also reminded us that Valentine's Day is about how much Jesus loves all of us, even the baby who isn't born yet. Oh how I love that child! I couldn't ask for a better oldest child.

The girls with their valentines first thing this morning.

Opening their valentine cards from Aunt Diane.

I love my sister!

Aubrey "read" books to Chloe in our room.

On a side note, I had a doctor's appointment last Friday. It's amazing how much stronger and louder the baby's heartbeat is than it was even a month ago. My measurements were good and the heartbeat was nice and strong. I go back in 4 weeks and then after that every 2 weeks, which is crazy! I can't believe that I'm that far already. In a way, I feel like I've been pregnant for forever, but on the other hand, it's gone by so fast. I'll be 26 weeks tomorrow, and I've been feeling great! What can I say - I love being pregnant!

Happy Birthday Little Bear!

Yesterday was Chloe's birthday. She turned 3! It's so hard to believe that she is 3 years old already. I feel like she was just born not that long ago. She has grown and changed so much in the past year. She and Aubrey are definitely buddies and playmates - something that was definitely not happening last year. Her vocabulary, thought processes, attention span, and ability to do things have changed too. She's no longer my baby girl (which I know she wasn't last year either, but...). Next year she'll go to preschool - it's just so hard to believe. While I know it's a natural process for our children to grow older, that doesn't make it any easier. Some days I just wish I could freeze time and have my kids stay little forever. They are at such fun ages right now and are so much fun to watch and see the ideas they have and the things they come up with. Not that they won't be fun when they're older, but I just love where they're at right now.

Okay. Enough with the sappiness. Calvin was inside a little later yesterday morning, so he woke the girls up. It's so funny how different they are when they wake up. Chloe takes about 10 seconds to open her eyes before she puts a smile on her face and starts talking about whatever random thought enters her mind. Aubrey, on the other hand, does not like getting up in the morning and you are usually met with crabbiness and her laying in bed for at least 5 minutes trying to wake up before she'll actually get out of bed. Calvin was met with these responses. Chloe was excited that it was her birthday. She asked me when she would be 3 - was it after school? When I told her that she would be 3 all day today and that the whole day was her birthday, she was thrilled. The girls got dressed and then went downstairs to eat breakfast. I had put up balloons and a birthday sign in the kitchen, so they were excited to see that. After breakfast and taking Aubrey to school, Chloe had a birthday donut that Aunt Kathy gave her. She then decided that she wanted to play Barbies. We spent the rest of the morning cleaning up, setting up the Barbies, and then playing with them. After getting Aubrey from school and eating lunch, we went outside to play. It was the first time that we had been outside since all of the snow. The girls had a blast playing on the big snow piles and the piles around the house. It was so nice out - no wind, sunshine, and decently warm (25 degrees) temperatures. When we were done playing in the snow, the girls took a nap and then we went to my niece Abby's volleyball game. The girls had been wanting to go to one for several weeks. They got to have popcorn and a ring pop, so they were happy. After the game, we came home and ate supper with Calvin, had birthday cake, and then opened presents. Chloe was so cute when she said that she would share her presents with Aubrey, since Aubrey didn't have any to open. We let them stay up a little later so they could play with Chloe's new Dora tent. They had such a good time. What a great day for my little Chloe bear!

Eating birthday donuts from Aunt Kathy

Aubrey standing on one of our big snow piles

The huge drift by the horse barn - Aubrey loved sliding down the drift.

The girls sitting on the mountain of snow Calvin has made by clearing out our lane

Making snow angels

Happy birthday Chloe!

Blowing out her candles
Ready to open presents

Chloe's new book from Aunt Norma and Uncle Al - she loves them!

Opening cards

They were both excited about the Dora tent.

The new Dora tent

Baby Hiccups

I woke up last night to the sound of Aubrey coughing. For the past couple of nights, she's been coughing in her sleep. It doesn't seem to bother her too much (she stays asleep), but it sure is hard to listen to your child cough over and over again and know there's not much you can do about it. So after laying in bed listening to her (our room is right underneath hers) for a while, I decided to go upstairs and try putting more Vicks on her chest and give her another drink. She was sleeping when I went up there so I had to wake her up to do both of those, plus got her pillows propped back up. She fell right back asleep and I went back to bed. As soon as I laid down, the baby started moving around. Then I realized that among all this movement, the baby also had hiccups. It was a pretty cool feeling. When I was pregnant with the girls, they had the hiccups ALL the time. It was usually at least once a day that they would have them, so I thought it was very strange that this baby had not had the hiccups at all yet. I continued to lay there trying to go to sleep, feeling the baby move, and listening to Aubrey cough. I finally got up again and took her a small piece of peppermint candy cane (I'm way too scared to give her a cough drop). After sitting there for a few minutes to make sure she wasn't going to choke, I went back to bed again. The peppermint seemed to help, because Aubrey quit coughing as much, but the baby wasn't ready to go back to sleep yet. He/she continued to kick and move around for quite a while longer. Don't get me wrong - I'm thankful for an active baby, but last night I was pretty tired and just wanted to go back to sleep. I'm so thankful to my husband who fed and dressed Chloe who was up at 7 a.m. this morning. It was so nice to sleep for a little while longer before having to get up.

Snow Day

On Tuesday afternoon, it began snowing. The flakes were huge and the wind was blowing, making it hard to see outside. We were supposed to get anywhere from 8 - 15 inches of snow. While the girls and I were excited for some large amounts of snow, Calvin was grumbling. He and snow are not friends. He dislikes the amount of time that it takes to clear it all out to get anywhere. Add to that the fact that he has to clear out the school and church parking lots too (because he's a trustee) and he really doesn't like snow. Wednesday morning we woke up to high winds, blowing snow, and still more falling snow. School was cancelled for Aubrey, and we even convinced him to stay home with us. The girls were so excited for our snow day, especially since Daddy was home with us! I made waffles and bacon for breakfast, and Calvin got the girls dressed. We spent most of the morning in the basement by the fireplace with the girls playing, Calvin working on bids, and me finally using the new DVD editing software I got for Christmas. It was so nice just being together. After lunch, the girls took naps (or rested as they tend to do these days) and Calvin went outside to begin digging us out of the huge snow drifts all around our house. He spent several hours working on it (thank goodness his dad came with the blower on the tractor or it would have taken even longer!) and then doing chores. In the meantime, the girls got up from their rest and turned the couch into bunk beds, which is something they've been doing for the past week. They use the stepladder and stepstool to get onto their "bunk beds" and then read books and play with their babies on there. I'm not sure whose idea it was first, but they love doing it! All in all, it was a very relaxing day and I was so glad to be snowed inside my nice, warm house with my family.

The entire south side of the house was buried in a snow drift about knee deep. Calvin could barely make it out the back door. This is the northwest side of the house. I normally have three evergreen bushes that you can see, but they are buried and you can only see the tops.

The big mountain of snow that came from clearing the lane. The girls are pretty excited to go and play on it.

Our tallest drift by the horse barn was almost as high as the round pen, which is about shoulder high on me.

The other big drift was in front of the cow barn. It was so high it covered part of the trampoline frame.

This is normally a cone-shaped tree, but the snow was so heavy it made it spread apart.

The girls and their bunk bed on the couch

Aubrey's part of the bunk bed

Chloe's side

Pinkeye?! ... Again?

Last week was a cleaning week around here. I worked on cleaning the house from top to bottom - which it definitely needed. The girls also both came down with colds on Monday. While Chloe had a runny nose, Aubrey had a sore throat. By Thursday, they were both doing much better and I thought that we had made it through pretty quickly. On Friday afternoon, Chloe's one eye started to get a little red and had some discharge. She has a history of getting a cold in her eyes that then turns into pinkeye, so I got a little nervous. Saturday morning it looked better and when I called the doctor, they said to just wash them (it was in both eyes now) and if they weren't better by Monday to bring her in. Sunday both eyes looked terrible, so I took her to the doctor yesterday. She did indeed have pinkeye, so we got drops for her eyes. I had the doctor look at her throat too since she had complained about it hurting. He also checked her ears and found that she had an ear infection. I was shocked - she never once complained about her ear hurting, only her throat. Her throat was also slightly red so he put her on amoxycillin. I'm so glad I ended up taking her in. She loves her medicine, but hates the drops. I have to put two drops in each eye four times a day. It's torture! She screams and tries to cover her eyes. I end up having to sit on her legs to pin her down. We've even tried bribing her with candy, which doesn't work. Hopefully the more we do it, the more resigned to it she'll be.

On another note, Calvin and I went shopping with the girls on Saturday. The goal was to get Chloe something for her birthday and to get a few other things. We found Chloe something she'll love and also got most of our other shopping done. While it was exhausting, the girls had fun spending time with their daddy. I was playing with Chloe yesterday and told her that we got her something for her birthday. When she asked me what it was, I told her that I couldn't tell her because it was a surprise. She then proceeded to tell me that she doesn't like surprises, so I could just tell her what her present is. She's so funny! She's definitely a persuader and will try to persuade anyone to do what she wants them to.