Thursday, August 22, 2013

Throwback Thursday: 1985

Only professional picture our family ever had taken!


I was around 2 year olds.  Annika insists that the little girl in the picture is her!

We never had professional pictures taken and I'm not sure what the occasion was for this one.  Josh and I are bad with professional pictures too because we've never had any taken with the girls because I think they're kind of cheesy!  I have a feeling my dad felt the same way and I know my mom wasn't a fan of having her picture taken either.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Weekend!!

~Our weekends have been cut a bit shorter lately since I've been working Saturday mornings.  Luckily I go in so early that I'm out of there by 9:30am and home by 10am.  Last weekend Annabel was still sleeping when I got home and Annika was still in her pajamas.

~We went to get Josh some new glasses.  He's been wearing contacts for a while now but they're bugging him.  The girls wanted to try on some glasses too.  I can't get over how cute they both looked in glasses!  Annika is a total goofball!


~We also went to Home Depot which is one of Annika's favorite stores because she gets to sit on riding mowers.


~I baked some muffins and breads to put in our deep freezer.  It's easy to pack the girl's breakfast/lunch for Josh when I can just pop a muffin in the girls' lunch containers and it can thaw in the fridge overnight.  Their favorite muffins are chocolate banana muffins with dark chocolate chips (recipe soon on my new blog that I swear I'm starting sometime soon!).

~We also made graham crackers in the shape of kitties because while we were out we went to the "Kitty Store" also known as Petco.  Annika asked that we take home a kitty but I keep explaining to her that Bo (our dog) is TERRIFIED of cats.  Seriously, terrified.  Poor thing.  We cannot get a cat!


~Sunday we tried to go to a playground in a different neighborhood down the street from us.  Their playground is in the shade and our playground is in direct sunlight.  They have a gate and it was actually closed!  I swear I've never seen that gate closed so we couldn't get in!  We had to play on our playground and couldn't stay too long because the girls got really hot fast and I didn't want them to get sunburned.







Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Date with Annika

We went to Orlando for a birthday parent Saturday.  Josh and Annabel went to the party for our nephew but since Annika has had an awful cough for days we decided that she couldn't go to the party and freak out other parents with her dog cough.  She says she feels fine but she couldn't seem to shake her cough.

Josh was going to drive up there (about a 2 1/2 hour drive) alone with Annabel.  There are a few issues with that, Annabel is rear facing still and without Annika in the backseat she sometimes screams.  The screaming isn't bad because after about 15 minutes she passes out and sleeps but it's just sad.  Plus if she needed anything during the drive it would be a pain for Josh to keep handing her things or stopping to hand her things.

So I got the idea of all of us driving up there.  Then I would drop Annabel and Josh at the party so they could spend time with the family.  Annika and I went to the Florida Mall which is way bigger than I expected!

Annika had fun because first thing I let her get a milkshake for  her sore throat and cough.


I kind of spoiled her on our trip.  I felt really bad that she had been talking all week long about seeing her cousins and swimming in their pool.  She cried for the first 10 minutes of our drive to the mall telling me she wanted to play with them.  The milkshake turned things around and she was a happy girl shopping with me.

We stopped at the Disney store were I told her she could pick out one toy.  She looked through the whole store and picked Woody from Toy Story but also asked if we could get Buzz.  I told her she could have only one toy so she asked if we could get Buzz for Annabel.  Sweet girl!!  She was thinking of her sister!  I got both Woody and Buzz and they were on sale for only $6 each which made it even better, I hate spending money on toys.

The girls love the toys though and are still carrying them around days later.

As you can see Woody and Buzz were having a moment together.  In Annabel's world everyone kisses and she kisses EVERYTHING lately.


AFter about 2 hours at the mall we got tired so we went back to the party where Annika hung out in her cousin's room watching TV.  She was such a good girl.  She just stayed in the room and played while I got a chance to hang out for a little bit.

Annabel was also good at the party from what I've heard.  She swam with Josh, ate cake with the family and cuddled with her grandpa.  She had a great time and didn't even seem to miss Annika which is what I was worried about at first.

All in all it was a great day and luckily now Annika has finally gotten rid of her cough!

Monday, August 12, 2013

Parenting Rant

Disclaimers:

First of all the names have been changed.


Secondly I would like to say that we are not perfect parents and I'm sure people sit back and wonder what the hell we're doing and that's fine.  Everyone can have an opinion and I'd like to give mine on a situation we saw this weekend.

Annika has a little friend that lives across the pond from us.  She is 4 months younger than Annika, lets call her Sara.  Sara has a brother that is 1 year older than Annabel, lets call him Max.  So Sara is almost 3 1/2 and Max is 2 1/2.

We had dinner at their house yesterday.  We never met their mother because she works long hours and their father stays at home with them.  From the brief encounters I've had with the father I've learned the following:

He doesn't watch them well.  We've seen both kids almost fall into the pond and Max used to play a house that was being built while the father was on his porch at least 100 feet away.

The kids drive a motorized car around and typically are 100s of feet away from the dad and I've seen them cross the road alone.

Max gets away with everything.  There was an animal show at our clubhouse, Sara sat by herself to watch it while their father chased Max around because "he doesn't like animals, he wants to run".

Max is completely non-verbal.  No words AT ALL.  So while we're worried about Annabel's 6 words at 19 months this child is 1 year old and doesn't even say "dad".  Sara says a small handful of words and Annika gets frustrated because she doesn't talk much back to her but they do enjoy playing together.

So dinner last night, I brought cookies for dessert.  The dinner planned was spaghetti with sauce, garlic bread, salad and they had some fruit and a cake.  Sara told her mother she wanted cake before we ate.  So she gave her a slice of cake and says "Sara wants cake for dinner, hahahaha".  I didn't even know what to say!  Annika asked if she could have a piece and I told her she'd have to eat all her dinner first and Sara's mother says "Oh, she can have cake, I always give Sara whatever she wants to eat".  Really?  So my response "We eat dinner first and then if she finishes she can have cake."

Max sits in a high chair still and does not know how to feed himself so when I sat Annabel down at their little table with her own fork and plate they asked if I was going to help her.  I told them she feeds herself and they both looked shocked.  I swear they both stared at her the entire time and when she was done I told Annabel to put her plate on the counter and Sara's mom said "oh you make her take her own plate up??"  So I said "yes, she always either hands me her plate or takes it up herself".

Also Max ate cake for dinner too because that's what he wanted.  Not sure how he told his mother he wanted cake but she sat there and fed it to him as she ate her food.

I know a lot of people do this but I get so annoyed when people leave the TV on while they're eating dinner, especially with guests.  It was on some sort of Disney channel the whole time and I kept having to tell Annika to eat her food and stop watching TV.

The father also told us "the kids go to bed at midnight every night, they refuse to go to bed any earlier than that but it's good because they sleep till 9am".  I wasn't going to say anything but Josh told him that Annabel sleeps that late too but I always have her bed before 9pm.  I'm sorry but kids that age cannot determine on their own what time they go to bed!!

Am I crazy or are these people terrified of making their kids do anything on their own or telling them what to do????  And I feel like their pediatrician must not be doing his or her job either in telling them that at least Max should be speaking more!  Josh has talked their father about it before and he did say the doctor mentioned maybe doing some testing but that it wasn't a big deal.

I'm scared to meet any other parents and I'm scared for this generation if people continue to not discipline their kids, set rules for them to follow, learn to say no and try to be best friends with their children.  It's really scary how these kids are going to be when they become adults in my opinion.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Oh The Things She Says: Part 3

To see part 2 and a link back to Part 1 click here.

"I like the old girls, I want to see the old girls".  Talking about the girls in her old ballet class.  She really liked some of the girls, but she did make friends in the new class so I'm not sure why she always says it.

"I'm going to go on the slide with the other kids but they need to share it with me, with me, they need to share".  Bossy pants, she always likes to tell other people that they need to share.

"Daddy said shit, that's not good, he's not good at driving".  She told me this after he had already warned me that it slipped out while driving when someone pulled out in front of him in traffic.  Annika was ready to take over and drive for him!

"I not a baby, I a big girl and I do big girl things".  She says this all the time, about everything.

"You need to share this", she says this while holding my phone, because you know, I need to share it with her.

"I wait for you to wipe my butt, not daddy, I wait for you".  Why, thanks Annika.  I don't get the thing with kids not wiping their own butts but she saves her wiping for me.

"I scared of my room when daddy is at work".  This is her justification for coming into my room every single night but doesn't do it when Josh is home with us.  Uggghhh....

"Red says stop and green says go".  Every time we're at a traffic light now she explains the process to
 me :)

"I'm gonna kick your butt".  Josh's fault, he jokes around and says this all the time!

"This is a GOOD movie, I've never seen this one before".  She says it whenever she knows it's a movie we hate and don't want to watch with her.

"That's my baby".  My favorite, she says that Annabel is her baby, not mine. :)

Monday, August 5, 2013

**Random**

**Saturday we took the girls to play putt putt golf.  It's too hot in Florida for that, especially at noon!  But we did have fun and it was cheap so it was worth it in the end.  We didn't even bother keeping score but Annika was pretty good!  When it cools down (for like 2 weeks in December) we'll have to go again.






**I have two recipes ready to go for my new blog!!  We made two different types of cookies and took pictures to go with it.  I'm so slow with this blog.  I wanted to start August 1st but now my goal is October 1st.  I want to have at least a recipe every other day for the first month to get started.  We made so much food around here from scratch that I just need to start taking pictures so I can blog the recipes!!

**Annika has gotten really good on her bike this last weekend.  I had to jog to keep up with her the other day and Josh had to do the same the day he took her.  It's actually fun to go with her now because she's gotten so good.  She can do a whole mile and then bedtime is a breeze because she's exhausted when we get home!

Don't mind the lovely scenery of the construction in the new part of our neighborhood!






**Josh sent me these pictures while I was at work Friday.  He always gets such good pictures of the girls out on our porch.








Friday, August 2, 2013

Grocery Shopping

For a while we were making grocery shopping a family thing.  Saturday mornings we would all go together to shop.

Then we moved.  We're over 20 minutes from where we shop so I made a change and now I take the girls by myself after work one day to get it over with.

Everyone makes it out like having two kids and shopping is sooo difficult. I really don't find it that way.  Annabel sits in the front of the cart and usually holds my list and pen for me.  I have to take the pen away a few times during the trip so she doesn't eat it, but other than that she's always easy going in most situations.

Annika will either walk, which can be a pain because she touches everything!  Or she'll sit in the main part of the car and play games on my phone.  This makes the trip even easier.  Luckily I don't buy a ton of stuff so she can fit in the cart with all our food.  I split our shopping up between two stores because Walmart just doesn't have all the organic stuff that I like to buy sometimes.

When we first get into the store Annika always begs to ride in one of those cars that costs 50 cents to ride on.  It's a stupid little yellow car with a lady that talks in a British accent but she loves riding it and now Annabel does too.

So if we make it to the check out line and they've both been good I give Annika the 50 cents to hold on to.

Then they ride.


I love that these two make me smile everyday.