Count with me

I hope everyone had a good Halloween and is looking forward to the holidays.  I can't believe Thanksgiving is already next week.  I have a lot to catch you up on.  Here are a few random updates since I just can't pack everything in all at once.

1.  I haven't quite gotten over the month long cold (for lack of a better word although it was more annoying than the common cold) and all of this week I've also had a stomach bug.  I can't tell you how nice it has been to feel sick to my stomach all day and all night, not be able to eat anything, and not be able to function . . . . uumm, yeah, not so much.  It reminds me of morning sickness!  I guess this is just my body's way of reminding me of what I will feel like for weeks when I do go through this again for baby number three (which by the way we are hoping to work on in the New Year!!).

2.  I've recently realized that toddlers are just like babies in the way that they cry when they are hungry or tired.  You would think that they would grow out of that, what with all of the other growing that they are doing, but nope, just like babies.  At first I thought Christina was just whiny, but realized that she just gets out of control when she is overly hungry or tired.  Stand back people, it is not a pretty sight.

3.  During speach therapy with Gwen, Christina and Nik were on the other side of the wall watching Gwen.  It was one of those window's where they can see us but we can't see them.  They didn't have the sound on, so they were only watching us.  Christina leaned over to Nik and asked "Is Gwen learning Spanish?".  Nik said, "No, Gwen is learning English."  To which she replied, "But she already knows English".  What a cutie pants.

4. After 30 years, I can now finally whistle. (Yes, I never knew how to whistle, how sad is that?) I give credit to all of the songs on the radio recently that have lots of whistling. I love to sing along to the radio so all of the whistling gave me lots of time to practice. I'm not exactly an expert now, but hey, I can keep up with the song and that is something.

5.  Gwen has a new tooth (that makes 9) and I think she is working on more.  It is weird how she was getting one tooth after the other so quickly and then she didn't get another one until months later.  I wonder if she is going to get a bunch at once again.

6.  I am totally psyched for Black Friday again this year.  Woohoo!  Anyone else? (If I am not better by then, someone is going to have to pay!!!)

7.  Christina is taking dance class at her school and enjoying it so much.  She wore a tutu I made her to class this week and looked adorable.  She's always wiggling around and singing the songs from class.  I can't wait for her recital!!

8.  On the same trip to the mall that I mentioned here - http://meganjustagirl.blogspot.com/2011/11/we-do-still-have-all-of-our-arms-and.html, I also almost passed out, but because of a totally unrelated event.  I took the kids on the mall merry go round.  It was a full sized merry go round but they only allowed kids to ride on the animals, the adults had to stand.  Since they didn't have seat belts, I had to stand in between the girls and hold onto them while they were going up and down.  I was also staring at the stroller (filled with our jackets, my purse, the stuff we bought, etc) on the side of the merry go round, trying to make sure no one ran off with it.  Something about going round and round while looking at a fixed location (while having an empty stomach), made me really dizzy and nauseous.  I was stressing out as the feeling of passing out kept growing stronger.  That would have been great if I passed right out on the merry go round and then both kids fell off their animals.  Hopefully they would have at least landed on my unconscious body!  But nope, the ride ended and I got us off that ride in record time.  Thank goodness.  That was a close one.

9.  We went to my Aunt and Uncle's house in Virginia a few weeks ago for my Mom's 50th birthday party.  We had a great time and it was really awesome to see five of the little cousins together.  I had my two girls, my nephew (who recently started crawling and pulling up), our almost-four year old cousin that lives a few doors down, and our cousin that lives in VA who is almost the same age as Gwen.  So basically we had five kids under four and we tried to herd them together for a group picture.  It was so adorable and pretty cute that my six month old nephew was surrounded by girls.  The whole weekend went really well and we had a great time (even if we did have to drive 10+ hours each way for only a weekend trip . . . it was worth it).

10.  Speaking of our 10+ hour drive each way, I have to mention (I think I've mentioned it before) that for some reason The Chipmunks is like the super, secret, problem solver to all things Gwen (while we are in the car, although we have never tried it elsewhere).  It is crazy.  Whenever Gwen gets really upset (for any random reason) and starts to cry, the ONLY thing that can calm her down is to blast The Chipmunks music.  And it works every.single.time.  How weird is my child?

Ok and if you guessed that I was only going to count to ten, well then you'd be right.  But, I just couldn't leave you without giving you a piece of this sweet sweet goodness.  So take a look and eat your heart out! (Maybe next time we can get them all to smile and look at the camera, HA HA, yeah right, I can totally see that happening!!!  -- maybe when they are teenagers.)

-- credit for coordinated outfits goes to none other than the birthday girl herself, Grandma Mary! --