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...

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..

Wordless Wednesday (#45): While Mommy and Nina Worked on Spring Clothes...

Wordless Wednesday (#44): The Oklahomans Were Here...

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...

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?!?

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!

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...