Friday, February 25, 2011

Movie Night

We had "Movie Night" tonight for the second time. This time, though, the girls and I were lucky enough to have Daddy here with us!

The movie of the night was Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue. The story of how we came to obtain this movie is a good one in and of itself. Suffice it to say that it was apparently the "Feature Title" of the Disney Movie Club last month. And the folks at Disney believe that I failed to decline the movie via the online system. The problem with this is that I know I did, since it's on my calendar to do every month, several days before the deadline.

So I'm frustrated, to say the least, that this movie showed up in our mailbox. But, since it happened to be a Tinker Bell movie and we were going to be "out" the shipping and handling fee anyway, we decided we would just keep the movie and cancel the membership (which reminds me, I'm going to do that right now!).

But, back to Movie Night. The girls love eating popcorn in bed. And, at least until her popcorn was gone, Macie sat relatively quietly and watched the movie. Soooooo, success!

Here are a few pictures of our evening. I see many more Movie Nights in our future!

Ivie's Random Thoughts (#15)

Ivie is a stickler to the rules when it comes to what words she should and should not say.

For example, when she first started talking and using exclamatory words/phrases, I put the kibosh on the word "gosh" in our house. I did so because, every time she would start to say "Oh my gosh!", I was overly concerned that "God" might accidentally slip out (which I personally view as unacceptable). And I cringed every time.

So I quickly changed our family over to "goodness" (as in, "oh my goodness!"), and explained to Ivie that we don't say "gosh" in our family.

Well, this is all fine and dandy, except that everyone else in the world uses this socially-acceptable word with regularity. Including my mom (Nina). So any time we are around my parents and my mom says "gosh", Ivie says, "Ohhhhh, Niiiiiina, you're not supposed to saaaaaaaay that wooooooord!".

As a result, I've had to start trying to explain that, while we don't say it in our family, it's not really a "bad word", and that she's going to hear other people say it a lot. So she doesn't need to throw them under the bus publicly if they do.

Anyway, it's fairly often that Ivie will randomly ask me, "Mommy, is (fill in the word here) a bad word?".

A lot of times, my response seems to be along the lines of, "No, 'rude' is not a bad word, Ivie, but you have to be very careful of when you use it. You wouldn't want to call someone 'rude'." She seems to understand this distinction.

Last night, right before the girls got into the bathtub, we had the following conversation:

Ivie
: Mommy, is 'holy cow!' a bad word?


Me (following my pattern with these sorts of questions)
: Nope, 'holy cow!' is not a bad word. But you should be careful of when you use it.

Ivie: You mean that I shouldn't call someone a 'holy cow', right?

Me (laughing under my breath): Ummmm, yeah, that's right!

She then proceeded to look into the tub and exclaim, "Holy cow! There are a LOT of toys in there!".

Yes, there are, Iv. I think you've got the meaning of "holy cow" down pat...

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Tooth #19

I don't really have anything to say about this one, so it's going to be just a boring tooth chart post... But this should be the last post about teeth, at least until Ivie loses her first one. Which might not be long from now, considering one of her classmates has already lost 2! I can't believe it's almost time for the Tooth Fairy to be introduced in the Herman house. That should be fun...

Macie's Turn (#5): Dress-Up Bear

You have already heard the story about these bears, so I won't go into it again. But this time, it was Macie's Show-and-Tell Day when the bears were pulled from the bin for the trek to school.

You'll notice that the bears are now both naked. This is not unusual in our house. Most of the dolls and stuffed animals are lounging around in their birthday suits. Not sure what it is, but, from conversations with friends, I don't think this is a Herman-girl-only phenomena. There's just something that little kids like about undressing their toys. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they (the kids themselves) enjoy running around nude? Who knows.

(Which reminds me, I don't think I told the story of Macie a few days ago when she, after stripping off her diaper for bath, proceeded to step onto our bathroom scale. And urinate. Literally 27 inches away from THE TOILET. Don't think we're ready for potty-training yet...)

But back to the bears. The only other comparison I'll make between these pictures below and the ones from the earlier blog post of these same bears (from back in December), is the girls' haircuts. We've flip-flopped. Now, it's Mac with the adorable fresh cut. In December, it was Iv. Maybe we'll get them on the same cycle next time around..


Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Ivie's Random Thoughts (#14)

Life is not always peachy in the Herman house. I know this shocks some of you...

Tonight, on our way home from Alfredo's (Tuesday night is always our "eat out night" during the week), Ivie was particularly grumpy. Why, you ask? Because she saw her friend Aurora at Alfredo's, and Aurora was lucky enough to have a Chick-fil-A ice cream cone in-hand.

As soon as we exited the restaurant, Ivie started clamoring for a cone of her own. And she was NOT happy when we told her that she could have a bowl of ice cream for dessert when we got home, but that we didn't have any cones. Therefore, on our way home, she made it a point to express her displeasure with us for not stocking cones in our pantry. Several not-very-nice comments escaped her mouth. Two of which I remember:

"Fine, then I'm not going to be your little girl any more!!!!"

and the one she thought about for a while and delivered quite deliberately, so as to really make her point clear:

"Fine, when I grow up, I'm going to cheer for Car-o-li-na STATE!!!"

Ouch. We're in trouble. She already knows how to r-e-a-l-l-y get to her daddy...

Monday, February 14, 2011

You Take the Good, You Take the Bad...

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Another holiday, another treat-making session in the Herman house.. I almost went back to the pretzel dessert from last year, since I knew both how they would turn out and the relative ease with which they are created. But then I ran across these homemade Pop-Tarts and thought they would be a welcome addition to the Valentine's Day festivities at school. Now Ivie and Macie's classes will be able to celebrate the holiday at their breakfast snack time, in addition to their regular "party" in the afternoon!

Because this was a project that involved cookie cutters, pie crusts, and the oven, I was very thankful to have a trusted assistant, my sister-in-law, Carla, in the kitchen with me. Not to mention that we had to make 37 of these suckers, so double-teaming it made it go so much faster!

Anyway, I'll let the pictures tell the story of the creation of what we're calling "Pop-Hearts"!











Since I was on such a baker's high after the success of the Pop-Hearts, I decided to go ahead and try my hand at a Valentine's cake for our family to enjoy at home. The high lasted, well, until I attempted to remove the two cakes from their respective pans. THEY WOULDN'T COME OUT. At least not in one piece. UGH.

Suffice it to say that I'm so glad that this project involved frosting. Originally, I had planned on just going with white (as in the picture on the recipe). But, given the look of the cakes once I actually got them formed into the heart shape, I thought it was a better idea to go with pink (to blend in with the cake crumbs that were placed everywhere to piece the thing back together!).

I didn't take very many pictures of this project, but you'll get the idea. Promise you won't laugh too hard at the heart-without-icing shot. I feel bad enough as it is, trust me...

Let me tell you something (in retrospect), though. Looks can certainly be deceiving. We had some for dessert last night, and this cake is YUUUUUUMMMMMMMY!!! Who cares if it falls apart as you cut it into "pieces" to put on your plate, right?!?



Sunday, February 13, 2011

The Greatest Show on Earth!

Yesterday, we took Macie to her first "live" performance ever. And what better place to start than with The Greatest Show on Earth?!? Since Matt and Carla were in town visiting for the weekend, they got to join us!

Ivie, of course, came along, but she had been to the circus (and many other shows) before, so my focus, at least when it came to pictures on the diaper-bag camera (which hopefully explains the poor quality in the bad lighting of the RBC Center), was on the Mac-ster.

We had a great time, although Mac was pretty much "done" after intermission. Probably because her popcorn and cotton candy were gone after intermission, as well!

Here are some pictures from our day!










Friday, February 11, 2011

Bryce's Prenatal Peek Session!

Dale and I had our session at Prenatal Peek this morning to hang out with Bryce in 3- and 4-D. We opted not to bring Ivie with us. Dale thought she would get bored, and we decided we can always show her the DVD at home sometime if she wants to see her baby brother.

Things we learned about Bryce during our session:

1) He is most definitely a "he" and doesn't mind showing off that fact! So we can keep the name and all the blue that has invaded our house.

2) He loves to have his hands by his face (so did his sisters!).

3) He is head down, prepping for delivery day!

4) It's his FEET that kick me regularly - we watched him do it several times during our 30-minute session, and got a picture of the foot right up against the uterine wall. The technician laughed and said, "Is he ALWAYS this active?!?" I had to answer yes...

5) He apparently has some hair (though actually seeing it was beyond my ultrasound-reading abilities).

6) He has a big nose, about which Dale is concerned (even though the lady explained that all noses at this stage look large, because they don't yet have cartilage, so they smush easily, making them appear big).

Here are some of the pictures from our session... I opted to put them in black and white on here, even though I have them in "color". (I'm not really sure how you can call that yucky brown tone "color", but the folks at Prenatal Peek insist on it... I guess it gives them license to charge more.) Most of these are face shots, so even those of you that haven't had much experience with ultrasounds should be able to figure out what is what. And, for those instances where you might not be able to, the lady was kind enough to label the pictures for you.

It sure was good to hang out with you this morning, Bryce! 11 weeks and counting until we get to experience your extreme cuteness face-to-face. Mommy can't wait...

"Regular" Ultrasound Pictures




Various shots with his hands by his face...





This look on his face reminds me of his Papa...


Two pictures with his eye open...



And the rest with a peaceful, sleepy look...




Thursday, February 10, 2011

Macie's (A)Musings (#5): The Anatomy of a Cough (as understood by a 2 year-old)

At 2:55a this morning, one of the girls (I couldn't tell which one!) started having a coughing fit and seemingly couldn't get it under control. After a while, I started to figure it was Macie, since Ivie would be smart enough to grab her water bottle for a drink, but I doubted that Macie could make that connection yet.

Sure enough, a couple of minutes later, Macie marched into our room, directly to my bedside, and declared (matter-of-factly with an air of frustration):

"My neck hurts."

I managed to stifle my giggles long enough to instruct her to go back to her room, take a drink of water, and get back in bed. At least she's got her external anatomy down...

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Wordless Wednesday (#43): Dinner of Champions...

(... and occasionally-lazy moms)

Monday, February 7, 2011

Our Journey to Five (#10)

Monday, February 7th

There's been some serious nesting going on in the Herman house the last week or so. And a lot of it has been in Bryce's room! Thanks to a couple of good friends who were willing to pass down their baby boy clothes, I'm pretty sure I don't need to buy anything else for Bryce until he's over a year old. We'll see if I'm able to hold to that at the yearly consignment sale in a few weeks. Mom, since you'll be here with me, please help me to stay focused on the one child in our household who doesn't have someone passing clothes down to her! Congrats, Ivie, you get my primary attention at the clothes sales. Until that day arrives when you actually start to care about what you're wearing and life gets more complicated (and expensive...).

Anyway, I've washed, folded, and hung every article of clothing, blanket, and burp cloth (because I'm confident he'll be a spitter like his sisters) that Bryce should need for his first 3 months. On a related note, who knew that little boys' socks could be so cute? It's obvious to me that I'm the mother of two girls. I've been there, done that, with pink - ready for some blue around this place!

But, while I feel good about the clothing aspect, I'm also keenly aware that it is taking me a while to get "in the mood" to purchase some of the other things that we/he'll need. For example, I need to pull out my pump and see what parts need replacing/supplementing. Bottles crack, lids get lost, "membranes" get flushed down toilets (not sure that ever actually happened to me, but it sounded good). So that's on my to-do list, and it needs to happen soon, since we're only about 10 weeks away from baby!

I also need to replace all of our bottles. I used the same ones for Iv and Mac, but they were purchased, of course, prior to the "BPA-Free" craze that's going on now. Though they both turned out just fine, I feel pressured to upgrade for Bry (which I guess will be his nickname, since I love to shorten names to 3 or fewer letters...).

Next on the list is decorating the walls in his room. I had to take down the pink-framed pictures, of course, so I'm on the lookout for Carolina-themed pictures, banners, posters, etc. Thankfully, there is no shortage of such items on the internet (or in my husband's office, for that matter). I've also ordered the wall letters for his name, and am very excited to see what the eBay artist can do with the theme/ideas I passed on to her. Sadly, we're looking at a 6-8 week turnaround for their arrival. Hopefully I can get them on the wall before Bryce is ready to sleep in his room!

We've got an appointment at Prenatal Peek on Friday morning to check Bryce out in 4D! We did this with both Ivie and Macie, too, so I felt like Bry shouldn't be left out. Hopefully he'll be in the same bouncing-around mood that I feel like he's in non-stop these days and will give us some good action shots. We (or I, at least, since I haven't brought it up to Dale) are contemplating letting Ivie come with us. I think she'd enjoy seeing him, but I'm wavering on whether or not she will be entertained enough for the full 30 minutes to not be a distraction. We'll see. But the good news is that, this weekend, I should be able to share some pictures with all of you. And maybe some video, too, depending on how motivated I am...

I've got my 28-week doctor's appointment tomorrow morning. Never mind that I'm 2 days from being 29 weeks! This is the appointment where I get my RhoGAM shot (because I'm Rh negative) and have my glucose tolerance test to make sure I'm not developing gestational diabetes. I passed this test with flying colors with both of the girls - I always say that, if anything, my body has learned how to handle its sugar in my lifetime!!! But I'm always a bit nervous going in, because I know that a failed test would mean dramatic diet changes for the remainder of my pregnancy. I'd probably have to eat things that, you know, 4 year-olds (and, thus, I) do not enjoy eating. So here's hoping for a passing grade again this time...

As usual, a post that I intended to be a small entry has turned into quite a bit of babbling. Time for me and the babe to hit the sack. Though Bryce hasn't gotten the it's-past-your-bedtime memo, apparently, since he's flopping around like crazy as I type. Get it out of your system in the next 5 minutes, bud. Momma's tired...

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Phone Pictures

Today when I picked the girls up from school, this is what I witnessed in Macie's class. Certainly a way to get 10 toddlers to behave. Classic.


While I was taking the picture (on my phone - sorry for the below-average quality), Ivie spotted me doing so. Which prompted her to want to use my phone to take pictures on our way to dinner. I gave in (and got the peaceful drive to Rudino's I was hoping for in exchange).

When we arrived, we had a few minutes while we waited for Brooke and Emerson. So we took a few more pictures...



And, right before we left after eating, Macie's teacher, Miss Madison, showed up for her evening shift at her side job. So Ivie wanted to take a picture of them, too.


Lastly, after Macie's what-is-turning-into-nightly-poopy (why can't it be a mid-morning poopy while she's at school?!?), she demanded, as always, to be the one to take it to the trash can. So, given the trend of the evening, I took a picture of her on the way. In her Hello Kitty boots. Quite the fashion statement, eh?


Aren't you glad I don't take pictures with my phone very often to post here? Yeah, me too. Don't worry, I won't make a habit of it. In fact, I'm hopeful that tomorrow, when she wakes up, Ivie forgets that my phone even has a camera. What are the chances? Slim to none, I'm afraid...

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Ivie's Random Thoughts (#13)

Ivie loves to color. And she does it A LOT. And there is no way that I could possibly keep all of the various coloring sheets that she completes "just for you, Mommy". So the vast majority end up in the recycling bin. She, of course, does not know this.

Tonight, while working on her latest Toy Story 3 Color Wonder (seriously, parents, aren't those the best markers EVER?!?) picture, she brought it over to show me her progress. And it sparked her memory of a past picture she had once colored and given to me.

The conversation went as follows:


Ivie: Mommy, where is that other Toy Story picture I colored for you? The one with Woody, and Jessie, and Bullseye?

Me (stumped, but trying not to show it): Um, I don't know Iv. Was it a while ago?

Ivie (nodding): Yeah, it's when I was 3.

Me (still not really knowing how I was going to get out of this one): Oh, okay.

Ivie: Oh, Mommy. I bet I know where it is. I bet you took it to your office!

Me (trying to hide my relief): Ahhhh, yes, I'm SURE that's where it is.


And she went back to the table to color some more.

Saved by the preschooler's imagination. Again. Phew.

Wordless Wednesday (#42): Dinner and Dress-Up with the Garcias

(Thanks for the FUN evening, Todd, Alena, Courtney, and Ethan!)