More Dance Pics

Tootie's first dance class

Last night, I had a little scare. Eric had called me at 5 at told me he was on his way to pick up J from aftercare at school. It usually only take him 20-25 minutes to get there. The school called at 6:02 pm and said that Jackson was still there and no one had come to pick him up. They had tried to call Eric's cell phone but he didn't answer. He didn't answer any of my calls or texts so I called Staci, who only lives 5 minutes from the school and she headed to pick up J. Come to find out, Eric had car trouble and was working on his car on the side of the interstate and left his cell in the car while he worked on it and lost track of how long it took him. Anyway, I felt so useless being that far away and not being able to get to J and wondering what happened to Eric. After all that, Eric and J were willing to pick up Tootie a leotard for her first dance class. Eric came home with 5 leotards! He said he wasn't going to mess up her first leotard so he just bought one of each! LOL! So cute.

She was beyond excited. She wore one to bed last night and tried on 3 this morning before she made her final decision on which one to wear this morning. She couldn't wait to get there. She bounced right in and told everyone her name was Tootie so now that is what her instructors and little girls call her too. That name is going to stick thru College!! I suppose it will be easier to spell! LOL!

She did so well. She did all of her tap moves. She listened very well. They do tap and jazz first and then ballet the last part of class. She wasn't too kean on ballet. 10 minutes before class ended she came running out and said "I done...dance class over". I couldn't get her to go back in until she got to go back in and get her sticker. It was funny! She got to watch the senior chearleaders throwing practice and was intrigued with that and thought she would like to go in and "play with them". She got to get measured for her blue tutu for her recital on April 25th. That should be really cute!

Miscellaneous pics

Sophi pushing Tootie's stroller. Then sitting on the stairs to take a rest. She started saying "No no" today. Unfortunately, her brother and sister taught her that and think it is just hilarious when she tells Mommy "no no"

The other is Tootie in her flower girl dress. However, she calls it her peeple (purple) tutu. She knew she had her first dance class on Saturday so she decided she must wear her tutu and practice dancing everywhere. So this is the getup she wore to take Jackson to school and she told J's teacher that she "go dance lessons cause I go poopy in the potty" and she told every waitress and a group of police officers at the restaurant that tonight! I think Eric was a little embarassed. LOL!

Tootie wouldn't take off her dress to eat spaghetti-o's for luch and I told her it would ruin it if she stained it so she ran over to the drawer and put 2 of Sophi's bibs on and said "there, now we eat!"

The Puzzle Master Strikes Again

J is back on his puzzle kick! He and I worked this 300 piece puzzle together on Thursday evening. I was getting a little frustrated but he helped me :) I realize that this group of pictures was mostly the girls but that's just because they were taken while he was at school or out with Eric. He is Eric's main helper!!!

Tootie's first haircut

J decided that Tootie's hair was in her face too much...so he cut it. I knew this day would come since I cut my own hair when I was Tootie's age and when I was J's age had my brother in the chair with a towel around his neck and the scissors in my hand. Luckily, he just cut bangs which I had to straighten but at least he didn't get the back!! Auntie Nichole got her wish!! If you notice her comment on the kids pictures last Wed. she wanted to cut Toot some bangs. I think she sent J a message :)

Sophi was diggin the spaghetti yesterday!!

In love with the goggles

Tootie's "Nemo" goggles that she picked out on ebay arrived yesterday and she hasn't taken them off since until I make her. I also got her some Easter knee high socks that she calls her "tutu" socks. She and J had to wear their goggles in the bathtub last night and then wouldn't take them off after until I made them at bedtime.

Eric got home late last night. I was about to go a little crazy having the girls attached to me 24/7. I was getting a little grouchy with no break. But my wonderful husband let me go get groceries, a pedicure, drop off drycleaning, and Target all by myself. I feel like a new woman. Now I'm ready for another full week.

Stories I can't forget

Sorry Guys, no new pics today. But I had a couple of cute stories I couldn't forget to write down.
Eric is in Virginia at his friend's memorial service so it's just me and the kids until Sunday. The girls and I took J to school, picked up the dry cleaning, went to the bank, and the grocery store. At the grocery store, of course, Tootie had to push Sophi in the cart. Luckily, we didn't run into any blue hairs today!
We picked J up from school and was just ready to go to Chuck E. Cheese's when Toots fell into a mud puddle. I forget to tell you that during nap time, she snuck out of her bed, tried on every pair of shoes in her closet and pulled her Easter dress down and put it on, and she took her pull up off. Luckily she stayed dry. Whew!!
Anyway, the kids were so excited to go to Chuck E.'s that as soon as I picked up J, he said, "Mom, everyday is a party with you" LOL!

I always feel like a superhero when I can accomplish anything with all 3 kids. I managed all 3 at Chuck E.'s for 3 hours and 85 tokens later. Sophi even road a few rides tonight. Toots had a meltdown at the time to go home but other than that we managed pretty darn good. J and C pretty much stayed glued together. At one point, I had to continue putting tokens in the horsey while Tootie jumped fences. I'm probably going to have sciatica in my left side one day with as much as Sophi stays glued to my hip. She is getting big, too. The hardest part was feeding all those darn tickets into the machine while bending over, holding Sophi, my purse and 3 cups in both hands and helping Tootie try to get them straight while they fed in and having about 20 people behind us waiting on us. They pretty much cried all the way home from exhaustion and passed out. Ahhhh! my king size bed and the TV to myself...what more could a girl ask for?

Another funny little story...Tootie has to do everything that J does and last night, he wanted to wear his Superman pjs to bed. So I go upstairs and Tootie has J's Captain America costume on with the mask and is passed out in bed. She's a trip!!!

She was also telling the big girls at Chuck E's "now one more turn, this is it, then you have to share with me". Speaking her mind, will never be this girl's problem. LOL!

The photo shoot

I took the kids for pictures today. They did really well!! Tootie was sooo busy and didn't want to look at the camera and Soph was teething but all in all we got some good photos. I was a little stressed. Tootie had to have props all the time. The girl was trying to get her to give up the beads, babies, hats, etc. but I just told her to let her go since that was her personality. Toots didn't want to wear her heels that matched her dress so I told her to leave her sneakers on with her dress; I didn't care. I had matching outfits for the girls and thought "What am I doing? They don't have similar personalities at all. So I got outfits to express their own personalities. J is always my big boy and he absolutely adores his little sisters. He would do anything for them. AUNTIES, GRANDMAS, AND GREAT GRANDMAS DO NOT WORRY ABOUT COPYING THESE PICS TO UPLOAD. I GOT LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS OF PICTURES WITH MY PACKAGE COUPON AND YOU WILL HAVE MORE PICS THAN YOU THOUGHT WERE POSSIBLE.

Sophi gets her walking shoes

Whew what a day!

Well today started at 11:30 when we left the house to take J to school. Dropping off dry cleaning, recycles, both banks, then J at school.

The fun part was taking the girls to get Spring shoes. Sophi got her first pair of walkers at Stride Rite today. I never put shoes on any of my kids except at their baptisms. The orthopedics say that shoes weigh their legs down and its harder for them to get their balance when they do learn to stand, therefore, they will walk faster. Anyway, the end result was that for the first 20 minutes she screamed because she hated having shoes on. She is a 6 wide and the lady told me I had to buy thin socks because her shoes are too tight with her thick socks and they don't make size 6 double wides. LOL! My little chunker. Now Toots is a shoe LOVER, as you know. So she was in heaven in that shoe store. The girl humored her and let her try on many pairs of shoes. I made the final selection and she was ok with it since they were pink.

Then on to the ENT for Tootie's discharge. No ear infections since August. Yay!!! Her ears looked great. No residual fluid. She then saw the audiologist to check for hearing loss and/or speech delay. Which I wasn't too worried about since she talks incessantly and uses 5-7 word sentences. They did a tympanogram which measures the fluctuation of the ear drum and registers fluid behind the ear. They were perfect. Then they inserted ipod-like earphones and measured the cilia (little hair) movement of the inner ear, which tells them how much sound is making it to the inner ear. Perfect in both ears. She then sat in the sound booth and was told at different decibels to pick up certain shapes and then given instructions on what to do with them. She passed with flying colors. Not only did she follow all instructions and hear everything but she knew all her shapes!! Yay for Tootie! Her speech is already ahead of a 3 year old so they said it wasn't necessary to do any speech testing. She also told me she had to go potty in the dr office and was still dry.

Then we picked up J from school. Stopped for dinner with Daddy and then all of us went to Ash Wednesday Mass where there were almost 600 people! And Christi got blocked in in the parking lot. Good thing we were all the way in the back and the last ones out!! The kids were great for it being so late. Tootie insisted on keeping her gloves on and waving to everyone and saying "Hi" on the way for communion. So funny! J was excellent! Later J told us that God told him what Aunt Nichole and Uncle Craig needed to name the baby! OH YEAH! NOW I CAN TELL. CRAIG AND NICHOLE ARE EXPECTING THEIR FIRST BABY Oct. 7. Anyway, the baby needed to be named "Mike Kazlowski" (For those of you who don't know...this is the little green one eyed guy from Monsters, Inc.. which the kids haven't seen for at least a month!) LOL! What these kids come up with.

We got home at 8pm at Tootie ran for the potty and was still dry since first thing this morning. Woooohooooo!!!!!!!

J learns to tie shoes

Eric and I worked one evening with J last week on learning how to tie shoes. I asked Mom if she would practice with him last weekend. He came home and now is a shoe tying pro. He can tie shoes over and over and it only took him 2 days to learn. Maybe they should spend the weekend with Nene and Pop more often ;)3

Our New Little Valentine

Les sent me the cutest pics of our chunky monkey, Cameron. She is such a little cupie doll but I can't save the pics off of Kodak so I'm posting another pic she sent recently. She is 16 weeks in this pic.

Our little Valentines

We gave the kids their little Valentines at Mom's on Friday night since they wouldn't be home for Valentine's Day. J and C each got 2 shirts for Disney and an autograph book to take. Soph bug got a Dumbo dolly. If you can see Tootie's shirt it says "Little Pixie Big Attitude"

The Potty hat

Tootie is doing great with her potty training. She almost always pees in the potty and we are working on the second part but lots of progress. Nene helped a lot this weekend. She does like her pull ups as a hat.

Valentine's Day 2010

I hope everybody had a great Valentine's Day. Eric and I had a fabulous time. We went over to Mom and Dad's Friday after Eric got off of work and had a little belated birthday party for Mom. The next day we got up and went to Gig's and replaced 32 electrical outlets, 12 light switches, and 3 light fixtures. Her house looks great with all the changes she has been making. We had a great lunch over there and I ate about 3 of her famous pineapple rolls. Yummo! We headed out and were going to stop at the nursing home to see how Pampa Bud's hip was doing but I got a call and the realtor had people over to see the house but they couldn't get in. Well in all the busy-ness of trying to get out the door to go to Mom's...I locked the wrong doors and they couldn't get in and didn't want to wait 45 minutes until I was the rest of the way home. Drat!!! They were cash buyers, too. Hopefully, they will call back this week and want to see the house. They walked around in the snow and looked in all the windows.

My wonderful husband, surprised me and took me to our favorite restaurant, Stone Creek where he had reservations so we didn't have to wait the 1hr 30minutes like the other couples. We had drinks, then my fav appetizer fried green tomatoes with crab and hollindaise sauce, then a steak with lobster meat and bernaise sauce on top, and Creme Brulee for dessert. He gave me a pair of diamond droplet earrings that are beautiful then we came home and watched movies and slept in and I didn't do a thing yesterday. We just laid around and watched movies all day. It was awesome!!!!

Atti-Tootie

She found her glasses.

Not too much going on here except a bunch of snow and a lot of Cabin Fever. I made Eric drive the "bean burner" (which is what I call his little car since it is worthless in snow" yesterday and I took J to school since it wasn't cancelled yesterday and he desperately needed to get out, as did I. Not to mention it was his Valentine Party at school, which was so cute. I will post a pic of that too.

His best friend, Brecken is all the way on the left and you will notice he is all the way to the right since they have to be separated. BUT after class when extended care starts they are like rubberbands and snap right back to each other.

Eric's friend from the Citadel, Mike Murphy passed away from cancer, yesterday so please pray for his family. Also, J's teacher Mrs. Kelley's daughter, 25, with a 3 year old who had no health issues died in her sleep a couple of days ago from heart failure. She will not be returning to the school and J and her entire class, even Tootie dearly loved her. We will see her in church, though. But please pray for this family also.

Heading to IL tomorrow to help Gig put up some light fixtures and electrical outlets. Well, technically, I will chit chat while Eric does the work. LOL! Then, visit Pampa Bud who is doing great with his hip surgery and should be home in 2-3 weeks. Yay!!!! Then, Nene and Pop are keeping the kids until Monday!!! So Eric has a big Valentine surprise planned on Saturday and we get to sleep in and watch movies the rest of the weekend. HOuse clean, check, car clean, check, RELAX, double check!!!

Happy Birthday Mom/Nene

Walking Sunshine


Dear Mother I love you and want you to know,
I think of you often wherever I go.
You lift me up; you're like walking sunshine;
I am lucky to have a great mother like mine.


Your endless affection makes you special and rare;
I'm always amazed by how much you care.
What you've given to me I can never repay,
Thank you, Mom, on your 55th birthday.

Go Colts!!

The kids had some Colts brownie bites for dessert tonight. They got a little blue!

Toots and I went shopping today as a reward for 2 days in a row of great potty training!! She felt like such a big girl. Wish she could go and do all the grocery shopping. Ha Ha!