Poor Grace....

2nd children have it rough (at least I'm sure that's what Grace will tell me when she's bigger)!  I've spent the last 3 days mostly just ignoring her. She's such a good baby that as long as she's fed, changed and she can see me, she's content. I spent most of Friday and the weekend getting ready for a Halloween Party we had last night, so she spent lots of time in her bouncer, playing on the floor, etc....but didn't get much attention. This morning I noticed her 2nd tooth already broke through her gums and I didn't even know it was coming!! Seriously, that does not get me the mom of the year award! AND to top it all off, this morning I tried on her Halloween costume (hand me down from big sister) and it is TOO small. The little dog ear hood definitely won't fit over her head and the costume is too tight, so if she sits up, she falls right back over.  

At least I remembered to take her 7 month picture yesterday...I guess she wasn't completely ignored!

Ok, enough of a pity party. Well find another costume for her, no worries, and all in all, she's got a pretty good gig around here :)

The Halloween Party was fun, we had lots of people (about 150), tons of cute little kids (and several good spirited adults) in costume, great food and other then a little too much wind, an all around awesome time!

Maggie didn't want to wear her real costume (didn't want it to be dirty for Trick-or-Treating, so she asked
if she could be overall girl....we settled on a diva farmer :)

Grace wasn't so sure about the outfit.

Maggie dancing with the band.

Grace was so glad when Grandma & Grandpa, Grandma & Pops and
Aunt Laura & Uncle Mark showed up, at least then she knew someone
would pay attention to her (but in my defense, I don't think any of them noticed
the second tooth either!)

the warmest spot at the party.

The cookie and smore stations were a big hit!

Bad picture, but you can see Arnie, I mean Bo Palini, coming down the slide on the left.
I bet Maggie easily made 200 trips up the steps and down the slide!

 Happy Halloween!!

Can you see it???

Well, can you???

Gracie is officially the owner of one very sharp little tooth (or at least the very top of one).

Matching pj's are a hot commodity at our house....

Good night!!

pledge to maggie?

Here is what Maggie is wearing today...

 I told her I thought she looked like the American flag. A few minutes later I heard her downstairs saying to Arnie, "Daddy, I look like a flag. Do you want to say the pledge to me?"

Maggie also declared that EVERYONE should wear tights today....Arnie and I weren't willing to participate but thankfully Gracie was willing to take one for the team :)

The weekend in review....

We decided to take one more camping trip before we had to put the camper away for winter. We headed to Camp Merrill with Mom, Dad, Deem, Laura & Mark. It was a nice weekend, we were expecting perfect weather on Saturday, but instead had kind of a chilly rainy day, but Sunday was warm and sunny.  Either way, it was a nice weekend to spend together. I have so many memories of Camp Merrill as a child that it's fun to have my girls there. I think I was less then 3 weeks old the first time my mom and dad took me there...and I've been going back ever since :)



Creative Solution or Bad Idea???  Dad and Mark were shoving pieces of wood into this
spring, while Arnie stretched it out with the truck. It kept them busy for awhile and fixed the Motorhome
problem, but at the time seemed like a pretty dumb idea.

 

Trying to break sticks, like Uncle Deem

Our Pumpkin family.



Gracie the Snowman :)

Last Thursday, Laura and Mark took Maggie to the pumpkin patch, she LOVED it. When the hayrack pulled up to get them, Maggie looked at Uncle Mark and said "Is that John Deere?"  Her daddy was so proud!  Maggie quickly picked a cute little pumpkin....Aunt Laura, wanting the best for Maggie and being a bit of a kid at heart, decided they needed to look for a BIG perfect pumpkin too. So they walked miles (at least that's what Mark and Maggie told us) and found a great big pumpkin. Saturday, when pulling the TONS of guts out and carving the giant pumpkin, I think Aunt Laura might have been regretting the decision....she's a good sport and Maggie is lucky to have her (her mean ol' mom wasn't going to carve a pumpkin this year).

A couple of random photos and thoughts....

Last week Maggie was coloring and she looked at me and said, "Mom it's easier to stay in
lines when my tongue is out." She's definitly got some O'Brien in her.

This morning I knew Gracie needed a bottle but I also needed to get Maggie to
school, so I handed Grace her bottle in the car and she

Today at lunch....

Today we met Arnie for lunch at Runza. After Arnie and Maggie ordered the lady working asked, "Are you planning to stay here?" Arnie said "yes", Maggie quickly said, "Not all day, just for lunch." :)

After lunch Grace and I shared an ice cream cone....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHmpXF6xybc
(yes, you do hear Maggie talking about Police Officers in the background. They came to school today to talk about Halloween safety. She REFUSED to be a part of it, at first. She sat in the office for awhile then she slowly crept into the room and by the end of the presentation she was sitting in the circle with the other kids. BUT she wasn't about to give the police officer a high-five as he left. What's with this kid? If she gets lost or needs help I think she's more likely to approach a homeless guy on the corner then a police officer or firefighter!)

Maggie's Stand-up Routine??

Maggie has been working hard on remembering a few jokes...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvwBieiJ3pA

Kelsey, Maggie's first Norfolk babysitter, came for a visit today. It took Maggie a little while to warm up to her, but before long it was just like she never moved away. It was really nice to see her. We're so blessed to have had several great sitters for our kids. Maggie's had great playmates and role models.

Tomorrow the girls and I are headed to Omaha, I have a couple of meetings and then we'll head out for one more camping weekend, with mom & dad, before the end of the season. Thankfully it's supposed to warm up a little, it was really chilly today!

The Princess and her Throne...



Princess Grace is a very agreeable child, but she HATES having a wet or dirty diaper....so for the last week and a half she's been doing her morning business on her throne. She LOVES it.  While I wouldn't call it potty training yet, she is starting to "get it". Today as soon as I set her down she smiled, did her business and then laughed, giggled and waited for Maggie and I to cheer for her. (Which we happily did!)

In other news, Grace is also saying "DaDaDaDa". I wasn't sure she was talking about Arnie, but last night it became evident that she was....seriously....who spends ALL day with her???  You'd think maybe there would be a MaMaMa....but No, she's going to be a daddy's girl just like her big sister. I can think of worse things for her to be :)

Practice Halloween....

We had a great weekend camping with Teri, Joe, Danika, Jayde, Lacy and Cole.  The girls and I drove the camper up on Thursday night and got set-up, then Arnie joined us on Friday after work.  Ponca State Park has a big Halloween fest every year, there were lots of activities for the kids, the campground was decorated and they even got to do a little trick or treating....Maggie kept calling it practice Halloween.  She reminded me several times that she would get to trick or treat again on REAL Halloween.

It took the girls a little time to get used to each other, but then they had a great time playing. It was really nice to have other kids along to play with Maggie. I wish we got to spend more time with Teri and her family, I love and adore them all. The good news is they just moved to Scribner, so now that they're closer we wont have any excuse not to get together more often.



Maggie's first trip over to meet the horses.

 



Maggie and Danika hangin' out in a tree.



Best Buds! :)

The Pumpkin Roll....Maggie's pumpkin went through the Out House and
a Baby Ruth bar popped out...we tried to explain why...she didn't get it.

Poor Jayde had 2 big girls to keep up with!

"Dad, you can call me Minnie."

Ready for a little "Practice Halloween"

"Fishing" with glow-sticks...you have no idea how long this can keep
2 little girls busy.

Maggie's last visit with "Fluffy". She must have been dreaming about
horses on the drive home. She was sitting in the back seat with her hand up saying,
"I'm just letting him smell me."

When we got home from camping Brandon was here. He was home for a couple of days for fall break. Maggie was glad he'd been here taking care of Reagan and she was really happy that they could play some hoops before we all went to Grandma and Pop's for dinner.

Fluffy??

We had such a great weekend Camping... there is lots to tell, but I'm too tired to recap it all right now, so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

Across the road from our camp site was the horse pasture, it had an open cattle gate entrance so Maggie could just walk over and help herself to the horses. That girl was definitely meant to be born on a ranch, she has no fear and a true love for horses. There were probably 12-15 horses in the pasture, but from our very first trip over there she had a definite favorite.  It was an all black horse, who was really soft and very friendly...and for some reason she decided her name was "Fluffy".

But apparently no one told the horse (that or she just liked to ignore Maggie)......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD9Nz3XFEaQ

MMMMMmmmmmmm....

It's M week at school. Today, like most days, on our drive home we took turns naming things that start with the letter of the week....M is of course one of our favorites because it includes Maggie and Mommy. Anyway, today we had lots of words, my favorite were-
Maggie : "Mom, guess what, I thought of a good one."
Me: "What?"
Maggie: "When you're cooking something delicious and I come in the kitchen and say MMMMMMmmmm, that smells good. MMMMMMMmmmm starts with an M!!!!"
Me: (laughing) "Yes it does."
Maggie: "oh and when we say the pledge of allegiance, Merica starts with an M."

Oh how her mind works. I explained that Merica actually starts with and A....but in her defense she says Merica not America, so in her little mind she was exactly right.

Arnie's been sick, he was feeling cruddy most of yesterday and all day today, tonight he was starting to look a little better. Hopefully tomorrow he'll be able to go to work and start getting back to normal. I'm really hoping neither of the girls caught the bug.

Firemen???

Maggie is going through a phase....at least I hope it's just a phase...she is TERRIFIED of firemen. Even the mention of them brings her to tears.  Initially I thought maybe it was the idea of a fire she was afraid of, but it's not, it's definitely firemen that are the problem.

A couple of weeks ago the Firemen brought the truck and came to visit preschool, most of the kids were thrilled, Maggie was hysterical.  After they were done talking to the class they took her aside and talked to just her, the teacher said she did ok and seemed to enjoy talking to them. Since then we've had lots of questions about how we'd get out of the house (should we come down the steps or "just kick the window"), when it's appropriate to "stop, drop and roll" and how if there was a fire at our house we could either go visit Ned and Lorri or Sally (our neighbors). She has tons of questions, but doesn't seem worried.

When I picked her up from school on Monday, her teacher told me they had watched an Elmo Fire Safety video.  The teacher said Maggie was so hysterical they had to take her out of the room and read a book....seriously.....ELMO??!? I told her that we could go to the library and get a book about firemen and that daddy would take her to meet some people he knew at the fire station....well that was a bad decision, once again, we had tears.

Seriously, what it is about the firemen? I tried to explain that they're regular people, that they're there to help us, that they have kids and dogs and are just like us.....didn't matter. She's referenced their outfits a few times, I'm wondering if when they came to school they were wearing the full fire outfit and mask....still...I have NO IDEA what we're going to do.

Maggie didn't go to school today, because we were in Omaha, but she told me they were going to talk about fire safety all week...so, God help her teacher tomorrow!

Go BIG Red!

Go BIG Red! Saturday Maggie decided she wanted to go to the football game with Arnie and I.  She fell asleep on our way, so she was a little groggy for awhile. To help her wake up, she and I took a little walk, we went to the Tri-Delta house and she got to see where mommy lived when she was in college.  One of the girls was sweet enough to show us her bedroom, Maggie walked in, sat on her bed and said, "Hi Girls" to her roommates. Maggie couldn't believe that 6 girls stayed in the same room and she kept asking if I missed my mommy when I lived there. I told her that OF COURSE I did.

Maggie loved the football game, or at least she loved all the snacks, the people and the balloons. By the second half, every time people cheered (which was alot during that crazy game) she ask if the game was over.  Maggie was really good, by the time we got home she was so exhausted that she slept in her cheerleader outfit! Of course, she was up and bouncing at 7:30 Sunday morning....

I wish I had taped this....It was Maggie giving Grandma instructions on how to take care of
Gracie while we were at the football game.



Maybe the "CHEESE" face is hereditary :) (I mean that in the
nicest possible way Aunt Cindi.)

 

LOVE!



I have NO idea why Maggie is growling at Gramma Lea...

I guess you have to have binoculars to be a real fan.



Maggie was so excited to have Uncle Evan and Aunt Amy here for the weekend. I'm
pretty sure Aunt Amy being there is the only reason Maggie wanted to come to the game.

 

Checking on Grace, making sure Grandma did everything right.

 

Playing a VERY competitive game of rock, paper, scissors.

 

Maggie has asked a dozen times in the last 24 hours when we get to
go to Atlanta....not so much to see Uncle Evan or even Aunt Amy but to visit
Bella Hello Kitty (the puppy).

Maggie and Daddy working on states. Arnie would take out about a dozen states and
then Maggie would put them back. Kept them both busy for awhile.

Cousin Hailie was nice enough to send Maggie 2 of her favorite dresses, that she's outgrown. They arrived early last week and are pretty warm outfits. Every morning Maggie asks if she can wear one, and it's been so warm that I haven't let her....well this morning it was chilly, so she got her wish. THANKS Hailie! It so much cooler to wear Hailie's clothes then something boring ol' mom picked out.

After school there was another surprise. Just as I laid Maggie down for her rest, Miss Lauren came for a visit.  In Maggie's opinion Lauren SAVED her... They played for a couple hours and did all of Maggie's favorites....a walk to see Sam & Topper, a picnic in the playhouse, lots of swinging and tons of hugs.  We sure have missed Lauren, we're glad she loves college but we were kind of used to her around here :)  It was so sweet of her to spend her afternoon off school playing with Maggie.

There is lots going on this week and were hopeful the weather will holdout. We were going to spend next weekend at home doing yard work, but Teri called yesterday and they're going Halloween camping next weekend and invited us to join them....sounds WAY better then yard work....

Growing up is hard work...

Yesterday Gracie had her 6 month check-up with the doctor. She's doing great....but we already knew that. She weighed in at 22 lbs and was 29" long....WHOA!! That's well beyond the 99th percentile for both. She's a big, strong, healthy girl. Thank God!

Today she's having a bit of a rough day. Her first tooth is working hard to pop through and after having 4 shots yesterday she's a little irritable. Who can blame her?? Sounds like a perfect afternoon to leave her with Grandma and go to a football game.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

When Daddy stays home with the girls....

.....enough said.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad