Just an ooky kind of day

This has been one of those days where one child or the other has me dealing with bodily functions all day long. It has been ooky oooky with more rags and buckets that I care to think about. I have children who like to get nekkid and and children who are apparently afraid the potty is going to bite their bottoms if they use it so they hide in the closet instead. Fun Fun Fun

Comparisons and a Request

Here is a scrapbook layout I did of Princess Snifflefritz and one I did of Princess Magpie at the same age. It is fun to look at them and see their similarities and their differences.


On the homefront, not too much has changed. Still working on my secret project. I am having a problem with Princess Magpie that I would love to ask your advice. At night, when they are in their beds, she has taken to biting her baby sister. I haven't caught her in the act, but I have seen the evidence. Poor little Princess Snifflefritz is such a gentle soul, I hate to see that happen to her and Princess Magpie is only 3 years old and has limited language abilities. I can't make her understand what she is in trouble for if I don't catch her in the act. Advice??

itsy bitsy teeny weeny

have I told you that I live in a teeny, tiny, itsy bitsy house? I do. It is too small. I have gotten rid of so much stuff to make it more liveable. I have not gotten lots of things that I could have gotten to keep from making it more cluttered. It really is very frustrating. I can't wait until our lease is up so that we can try to get something a little bigger here in town.

Secrets

I hate having secrets. I hate not being able to say exactly what is on my mind. I am working on a project now and Prince Charming has requested that I keep it a secret for a while. But the project takes up so much of my time and thoughts that I find myself censoring my speech and my posts. I see my friend in the store and I am about to discuss what I am doing, but I stop, it is about my project and I can't. My project takes up so much of my thoughts that I find myself not posting what is really on my mind. I post pics and any other thoughts I can think of, but not my real thoughts, not what is most important right now. Not the things I want to say.

Keeping the secret is not a big deal in the long run. I will be able to share later. But it is just not in my nature to keep secrets, especially here.

Scrapbook Layout

Little things

There are little things that never fail to make me smile. They are small but every time, they just bring a little light to my day. Some of them are:

1. the way Princess Snifflefritz walks. I love the deliberate, slightly awkward, always purposeful way that she strides around our house.
   
2. morning hugs where little arms wrap around my neck, so excited to see me after a long night apart
3. "I lush you mommy." and "Mmmm. . . I like brekfes." as they take off to see what I have prepared for them.
4. "What's wrong Sisser?" As Princess Magpie brings Princess Snifflefritz everything she can to make her feel better when she is sad.
5. "Heppa Me!" "Heppa Me!" As Princess Snifflefritz has once again climbed onto the chair she can't get off of, but still insists on climbing.
6. Little chubby legs climbing up into my lap for random cuddles . . . just because.
7. Sleepy smiles when I wake little girls up in the mornings.
8. Big grins, waving and "Hi Mommy!" coming into the room and then immediately leaving again waving and grinning "Bye Mommy!" and lather rinse repeat for as long as the game seems fun to a 19 month old.
   
9. So many little voices and little giggles and little feet pitter pattering filling every corner of my house with chaos, noise, love, and family. I truly am blessed.
   

Scrapbook Layouts

I realized yesterday that I hadn't finished my project of scrapbooking Princess Snifflefritz's first year of life as I did for Princess Magpie. So, I started back up at it again. Here are my two latest additions.

3rd Birthday Pics

We took them to McDonalds with some family and friends to celebrate the face that being three means she is officially old enough to go in the play room there, but wouldn't you know . . . I forgot my camera!!! They had fun anyway and I got pics after we got home. I had all three girls in the cutest little matching yellow outfits (which of course, I didn't get pics of either *pout* LOL)

Princess Magpie

Happy 3rd Birthday to my beautiful Princess Magpie. I will always feel grateful that after five years of longing and wishing you graced us with your presence. I love you and your funny ways more that you can ever know.

(I will be posting pics tomorrow)

Her poor little nose

Poor little Princess Snifflefritz tripped over a sunbeam today and hit her face and her nose on the coffee table. Her poor little nose was bleeding and she was traumatized and crying hysterically. We had a very very long cuddle where she was clinging on to me, burying her head in my shoulder, bleeding all over me. Then when she got back up she slipped on some water her sister had spilled. I am hoping she doesn't end up with a black eye tomorrow morning. My poor, sweet, tiny, cuddly, baby

Wordless Wednesday - Exhausted Mess-Maker

Click the pic above to get to other Wordless Wednesday Participants.

For more Wordless Wednesday go check out 5 minutes for mom and 7 Clown Circus!

Sorry

Sorry, I couldn't post yesterday. Blogger was acting funny and wouldn't let me in my dashboard! It is still acting funny but it finally let me in. I am just praying that it will actually post this.

Well, it looks like we are going to have to retire Agatha (our van) she is really going downhill fast and even the mechanic asked us to consider how much we wanted to put into her. *sigh* I liked our van even with all her problems.

We have new neighbours now. Prince Charming has met them and talked to them and he really likes them. Princess Belle has been playing with their daughter every day. So she is thrilled! I am glad she has a friend to play with. I just wish we lived on a safer street for them to play.

Getting things done

Well today I attacked the girls' rooms with a vengance. I started with Princess Belle's room as there was an awful smell in there that needed ferretting out. I won't even tell you the extent of unmentionable, disgusting things I found stashed in all corners, pokey places, and crevices of her room. I will tell you that she lost some of her hiding places as a punishment. But her room is now refreshing, clean, and livable once again!

After I spent all morning on her room, I decided to the toddler's room too. It wasn't as bad (I keep on top of it) but I had to move things around to ensure that the babies didn't get into things that they shouldn't. So not their room looks great too.

It may not be an exciting day to post about it, but seeing the girls enjoying their newly cleaned rooms was really nice.

Saturday PhotoHunt: Backwards

Other PhotoHunters

The theme this week is Backwards and I was reminded of Princess Snifflefritz who insisted on trying to use the slide at the playground backwards. She kept climbing up the slide and then falling down and sliding back down again. It was too funny but she had a great time doing it.

My Babies Now

Princess Snifflefritz - eighteen months

Princess Magpie - almost three

Princess Belle - age nine

When they were babies

Princess Snifflefritz, now 18 months old.

Princess Magpie, now almost three years old

Princess Belle, Now NINE years old

Two Edged Sword

I was out visiting today and someone saw Princess Belle for the first time in a few years. In her usual manner, she was excited to have a captive and interested audience and talked up a storm on whatever interested her. When I was few feet away and couldn't hear what they were doing, he even got her to read something out loud to them. He was entranced.

Now here is the part that is a two edged sword. He was amazed by how smart she was and how advanced her reading is. It made my homeschooling heart swell to know that he could see how much she was learning at home. But then he went on to exclaim how she was sooo smart he couldn't see how she had any kind of autism at all. Surely if she could read like that, she couldn't have autism and did we really have her officially diagnosed and by who.

See, I was glad that he thought she was smart, but his understanding of autism was a little frustrating. Autism has nothing to do with intelligence. Hers comes out in her social interactions, in her extreme reactions to sensory input, her sensitivity, in her extreme need for routine, her complete lack of understanding of social rules, and in so many ways that are not obvious in a few minutes of excited conversation. I am glad that she has been doing so well at home and that in our home environment her self-esteem has blossomed so much. I just don't like it when people feel that having autism in any way limits her intelligence. She is a smart girl, really smart. As far as I am concerned, there is nothing she can't do. I don't want people to expect less of her because of a label that is supposed to help us understand her.

#Autism

Princess Belle moment

I had a moment today that reminds me of when I was a little girl.

Let me tell you about one of my favorite memories of my dad. When I was little, one of my favorite things to do was listen to music with my dad. He would lay on the floor in front of his record player and I would sit beside him. He would play all his favorite songs (Charlie Pride, Hank Williams, George Jones, Tammy Wynette etc) and after each song, I would always ask him, "What was the story in that song daddy?" and he would tell me all about what was going on the song. I was always moved by the song and I LOVED spending that time with my dad. On long car rides, he would sing the songs himself and most of the time, I be would so entranced that I would be moved to tears by the stories in the songs.

Well today, I was sitting with Princess Belle in the living room and I just started singing one of those old songs, "For the Sake of the Children". She stopped and listened intently and after it was over, she asked me to explain the song to her. And she seemed entranced as I spoke and then sang it again. Later, as I thought about it, I was brought back to those days with my dad.

Mommy and Me

Princess Belle and I like to take some time to go out and spend a little time together, just us big girls. She really likes it and it is nice to get that time with her. This last time, we just went for a walk down the road to the toy store. And despite the fact that it was a really windy day and our hair was a mess, even the walk there was fun, she enjoyed running up the bank in the overpass, and picking wildflowers on the side of the road. And once we go to the toy store, she had a great time checking out all the toys with buttons and gadgets and I let her just take her time and have fun.

Tonight's supper was a meat sauce I simmered in the crockpot all day over macaroni noodles. It was really yummy!

Quiet Sunday

We had a quiet day at home today. It was actually lovely. The wind was blowing like crazy outside and I was just thrilled to get some cooler weather.

Here is a pic of Princess Belle goofing around with some face paint and Princess Magpie taking a quiet moment to herself. I LOVE my girls!

Good Days

It was a little cooler this morning so I got up and got to baking a bunch of goodies for my family while it wasn't too hot to have the oven on. I made mini-bbq meatloaves, bacon and mozzerella filled biscuits, corn bread muffins, and cheese filled biscuits. I also put a chili in the slow-cooker for supper. After all my baking was done, we took the kids out to a little carnival that a store was having for it's grand opening. It was great fun. There was a HUGE lineup to meet Spiderman (he had a great costume and looked really authentic!) However, Princess Belle and I were getting some popcorn and cotton candy for all the kids when Spiderman came up behind us. We ended up being the first ones to meet him and get our picture with him!! We skipped the very very very long line entirely completely by accident! Afterwards, we took the kids to the pet store to see the animals and music section of the store next door. It was great fun.






And on our way home everybody fell asleep. (Princess Belle woke seconds before I took this pic)