in case you were wondering

I went back and looked for pictures of the shamrock shirt.  Over the four years of St. Patrick's Day celebrations with girlies, I found three pictures with the shirt.  I don't know what Abs wore in 2012; there are no St. Patrick's Day pictures from that year.  I don't think it was the shamrock shirt though, I am thinking it was a green and navy floral dress.  So three out of four ain't bad.  I think I got my couple dollars worth out of that little dress/shirt! 

sneaky spinach

In honor of St. Patrick's Day [and thanks to Christa's love of pinterest], we ate a green dinner!  Pureed veggies are already green, but then I supplemented with lots more green.  I stuck a bag of raw spinach in the blender to make our own food coloring.  I added just a little water which wasn't enough, so I added just a little more and it was wayy too much.  Our green coloring was much too soupy.  I added it to mac & cheese and that worked really pretty well.  And tasted exactly the same.  I also added some spinch to rice krispie treats.  They also tasted the same; however since the spinach had gotten too runny, the rice krispies had a wet, squishy texture to them which wasn't overly appealing.  It was a fun dinner I suppose, although the kids weren't nearly as excited as I'd hoped.  Kids and change and colored food don't mix well.  Too bad. 

Ryan was all about dressing up in green this year.  As the kids get older, they get more and more excited about these little holidays.  He looked super cool in his new green no-pinching tshirt.  And Chloe-Chlo wore the same shamrock outfit that the girls have worn for years :)  It starts as a great dress and then becomes a great shirt.  Mommy's pretty cool like that.  I should look back and see how many times its actually been worn by one of them. 

So, happy St. Patrick's day!

happy heart

After church today, we drove down to Kennesaw to meet Mommy's high school buddy, Ms. Valerie, and her family for pizza and visiting.  It was great to see them!!  We all love Baby Milo, especially Abby :) 

We got down there even earlier than I thought we would and since it was pouring rain, we didn't want to get out or stop.  So we kept driving around.  It was a great drive though!  Chloe fell asleep, always a good thing.  And then we realized that Ryan was reading out loud from his big ole' Berenstain Bears collection of books to Abby.  Happy Mama here!  Ryan is really catching on to the whole reading thing; I love it!

shark tooth

Ryan lost his first two teeth!  With a little help from the dentist :)

A few weeks ago, Coleson was brushing Ryan's teeth and called me to the bathroom.  Ryan had a new tooth erupting on the bottom of his mouth, behind his baby teeth!  It was pretty far back, making its own row, not even wiggling the baby tooth.  So of course we talked to the dentist about it last week at his checkup [which went great, no cavities, everything looks good].  Dr. Miles says its not all that uncommon and called it a shark tooth.  After an x-ray, he recommended that we wiggle the baby teeth out of the way.  If we wait too long, the adult tooth will come in fully and set itself permanently in that wrong spot.  However, if the baby teeth are out of the way, his tongue can push the new tooth into place, hopefully avoiding future corrections/ braces. 

So on Wednesday, we went back to the dentist and Dr. Drew pulled the two front, bottom teeth.  Ryan did awesome!!  They gave him some happy, laughing gas and then numbed his mouth a little.  He did great, didn't even cry or anything.  Dr. Drew said he had "monster roots" and that pulling the teeth was the right thing to do, they weren't going anywhere on their own.  So now he has an adorable, toothless smile [well, sorta toothless, you can definitely see that adult tooth set off to the back :)].  He did great with the recovery.  I gave him one dose of Tylenol when we got home, but that was it.  I kept asking if he was okay, if anything hurt, but he was fine.  The doctor had said we'd need to alternate Tylenol and Motrin all day, but apparently not.  I made him some orange jell-o salad and he also had applesauce, but he got back to normal eating pretty quickly.

The tooth fairy came that night and left Ryan two dollars and a cool note.  She also left the teeth so he could show them off and put them in a baby book if we so choose :) 

let it go

We've joined the American masses ... Disney has wormed and wiggled its way into my children's thoughts and minds.  Ryan isn't much for movies or songs.  Like his Daddy, he's just not wired that way.  Abby is more like me though, songs stick with us.  We pick out lyrics and after only a handful of times hearing a song, we've got it down.  And so now that Abby's getting older, she's picking up on the trendy songs, movies, and other such stuff.  We have watched the "Let It Go" music video half a dozen times today.  It would be five times that amount if I didn't limit them!  We are now cool, pop-culture people.  We did see Frozen in the theater.  And we've been playing clips of the song during UpStreet at church.  [Abby's not in UpStreet, but she loves hanging out during our rehearsals].  Then, today at gymnastics, Ms. Danielle played Let It Go for their free time at the end of class.  Abby was sooo excited; she told me dancing to the Frozen song was her favorite part :)  So of course she wanted to play it at home too.  And so it begins! 

Fortunately, I do like the movie, and I thought it had a surprisingly good & wholesome plot, especially for a Disney movie.  I am also a sucker for sisters, even more so now that I'm raising a set of sisters.  You better not tell, but I'd love to get Abby the movie for her birthday! 

daughter of a Florida native

Abby:  "Mommy, can I just sit in my chair in the sun?"

and then once set up in her chair: "I'm enjoying the sun!"

brainwashed?!

Friday night it was supposed to rain, and we were figuring that would wash away the snow still on the ground.  So as we closed the blinds, I said : "goodbye snow!" 

Abby responded : "goodbye snow, bring us some warm weather!" 
and then Ryan : "goodbye snow, hope I don't see you again!"

Snow day #8

Word World on PBS at 2:00. Quite possibly the best thing about snow days if you are Ryan!

this and that

- Early on in last week's snow day adventures, Abby misplaced one of her zebra gloves. [we are having a hard time learning to be responsible for our own things!].  I found it Monday morning when I went to make Ryan's lunch for school.  It was inside his lunch box inside his backpack.  I can't believe I hadn't thought to look there.

- The other night at dinner Ryan announced: "online at shaneco dot com"  Hmm, I knew Abby was good at catching words and phrases from the radio, but Ryan's not usually like that.  Good marketing.  Gonna have to pay even closer attention to the radio stations we listen to!

- Abby has always loved music of course, but now she's into loud music.  Really loud.  If I had a dollar for every time she said "can you put it on a little louder please?" I'd be a millionaire.  She also thinks I am her personal DJ, and she is constantly requesting songs.  I've actually been compiling a mixed CD of all her favorite songs to surprise her with, but I haven't finished yet.  It'll be great to not have to change CDs every five minutes! 

- Chloe is throwing up :(  She was crying in her bed when I woke up at 6:40ish.  Before I even got all the way in there, I could smell the throwup.  Poor thing!  She's thrown up three times, including once in her carseat.  I've seen a lot of yuck as a mom, but throwing up in a carseat really does top the list.  The carseat is in pieces, the padding and straps are in the wash, the carseat has been sprayed out in the driveway, and Abby is home today since I couldn't drive her to preschool.  We tried calling two friends for rides, but both had already left for preschool.  Just as well, I'd have to leave about now to pick her up, and Chloe is still asleep and her seat's not put back together.  Hopefully she is sleeping off whatever bug got her! 

one last word on snow

I'm really over last week's snow.  I'm getting sorta tired of people asking about it and making small talk, time to move on, is it spring yet?!!  But before we do, I wanted to make a note of how cute Chloe was.  This was her first snow and she did great!  She was a little hesitant at first.  She's a thumb sucker and was not a fan of the gloves.  And the snow falling and accumulating on her while she rode in the wagon couldn't have been fun.  But you know what?  She did very well.  And she really grew to like it.  By the end of the snow days, she had mastered getting dressed.  She would point and grunt to her hat and gloves and try to put them on herself.  She liked the snow and loved being outside.  She rode in the wagon lots, she swung on the playset swing, she slid down the slide, she even sat in the snow.  But the image of her trying to pull on her own hat is what's stuck with me, so cute.  The kids had so much fun in the snow!  Although truth be told, they [well mostly just Ryan :)] were pretty much over it too by the time it had melted away.  Ryan thought it was too cold, wonder where he gets that from?!

So here's a few cute snow pictures and then I'm officially done with snow for the next few years!