The Hawk Eye

We made the paper :) Enjoy!

The Hawk Eye

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The Drama Queen

In Action. The other day we were having dramatic play with the child care and she showed her true colors. She is such a drama queen - we have been telling her that for months, but now we caught her on film :) I loaded the whole episode on Picasa for you to enjoy :-)

From Lexi Dramatic Play

Thoughtful Children

I look these as the girls were contemplating the inner meaning of Easter (or so I would like to think they were that sophisticated).



Aren't they beautiful people!

Easter 09

What a wonderful Spring Day to celebrate!

The Easter Bunny arrived at our house sometime in the night and left the girls easter baskets filled with Barbie Movies and Wipe-off coloring/tracing books.

Then after Church, the girls discovered that the bunny left eggs in our yard.

Cousins

The girls met my Sister's two little girls, Kelsey (7) and Kaylen (2 1/2) and I am so excited that they will grow up together. Kelsey and My daughter both share those "oldest child" similarities and my youngest and Kaylen are both, quite obviously, the babies. Kaylen and my youngest were much too worried about whose mommy was who, rather than keeping up with the Kelsey and my oldest.

Don't they look like trouble? I think our only saving grace is that the girls live about 7 hours apart. But summers and Holdays will be soooo much fun!

Old News and New News

The new arrival is now old news at our place.


John and the girls started a clutch of 19 eggs in the incubator, two babies broke through their eggs, but only one made it. Mixed emotions ran high as our family was once again reminded that life is does not always turn out as we expected. At first, John and I discussed getting rid of the extra eggs and running out to the local farm store to buy some baby chicks and replace the rotten eggs while the kids were gone to school, but the reality is that it really doesn't teach the kids the real facts about life. But in the end, we did go buy three more babies to keep our one Americanas company, after all, chickens are social animals. I am little perplexed by our choice of chicks - some broiler breed - since we are vegetarians, but I guess that goes with John's theme. Boar goats (meat goats) and broiler chickens - go figure.

Vacation South Slideshow

There are so many pictures from vacation that I have just made a slideshow. Hope you don't mind being redirected.

http://s121.photobucket.com/albums/o201/cmtrochesset/Feb%20Vacation%20South/?albumview=slideshow

Enjoy!

Let's Play Beauty Shop!

is what The Oldest must have been saying to the youngest, when she decided to cut off sissy's hair and then her own.

Everyone keeps asking if I can laugh about it yet, and the answer is, "I am not quite there yet. I know I am not suppose to let things like this bother me, I know it is a phase, I know it is only hair, I know they are just girls, I know that every girl does it, I know, I know, I know"; BUT the truth is my heart is still sad to see their pretty hair gone.

Sat. morning, as I was preparing babysitting handouts for the local girl scout troupe, The Oldest came into the kitchen, took the kitchen scissors out of the drawer, went into the bathroom, and began cutting on the youngest's hair - or at least that is the best translation I can get out of either one of them. Why didn't I see her get them out of the drawer is beyond me. And I should have known, after the 6th time she came by and told me she loved me, that something was terribly wrong.

At one time, the girls hairs was as long as the longer pieces on the side - all the way around. The only thing to do was to cut it all down short. She had no bangs left and The other one had about a 1/2 inch of hair in the middle of head going from her forehead back. Jamie, our wonderful beautician, said the only way to get it to grow out decent was to cut all down. So we did.

She is much happier with her new cut than the youngest. In fact, she loves her new hair and is eager to show it off and answer any questions about her new haircut. The youngest on the other hand, wants her princess hair back and will not let me take a picture of her cute new haircut. But if you can imagine, her hair looks like Sissy's only a lot shorter in front, in fact, she had no bangs.

New Arrival

What a SURPRISE!

We got home last night around 9ish after a LONG car ride home. This morning we woke to a damp little foal. I am so glad she waited until we got home.

Family Vacation

We have made it through the first leg of our journey without too many physical or emotional scars :) I think the escalator was by far the scariest thing on the whole trip.

Here we are at the beginning of our journey in the rental car from the house to the St. Louis airport. The girls were great and handled the transitions wonderfully.

I took several pictures at the airport, but I didn't have the camera set correctly and the pictures are worthless. So here is a picture of at Mom and Dad's the next morning.

On Thursday we visited the Desert Museum near Tuscon. Lots of cactus and we made it back home with out bringing quills back with us!

UHG!!!!!

After 4 failed attempts at nabbing a Cannon S2 camera on e-bay, several late nights trying to get in that final last bid, a slow a$$ Internet connection, I am TOTALLY frustrated! I am beginning to wonder if maybe getting a new camera at a great price is not in the works right now.
I am feeling even MORE desperate because we leave in 7 days for our vacation, and I really wanted a camera to take with us. Finally tonight, after another failed attempt, I typed in our old camera model number and there are 2 of them out there that are going really cheap, so now do I go with the really nice one and just keep plugging along and hope for a break or do I put in a high bid on the old style camera, which I really like, that ends in 22 hours. Oh the pain and agony!

I will let you all know tomorrow night what transpires.

However through all this, I am getting a little better feel for The Youngest sleeping habit, which as an adult seem to be HORRIBLE. Does the typical 3 year old wake up multiple times a night with nightmares? This is all new to me and I just don't know what to make of it. Because of the Prednisone for my pneumonia & the new obsession with eBay, I have been staying up until 2ish in the morning and hear every little sound Lexi makes. For the last week she has consistently cried around 10 pm (about 2 hours after bed time) and then between 11 and midnight. Then around 2 a.m. on 3 nights, she actually got up out of bed and came out of her room. With the earlier times, I have been comforting her while she is still in that sleepy, bad dream state and as long as I don't kiss her, which normally she loves to get pecks on her forehead and cheek, she will go back to sleep. The 2 am one is a bit tougher because she is a wake and coherent. I have been walking her back to bed and rubbing her hair until she falls back to sleep - about 10 min. later.
I know she has been through a lot of transitions lately and even early in her life she had a lot of neglect for her basic needs - but I just want someone to say, do this or do that or you are doing okay.

And then, what happens when I finally start being able to sleep at my normal time? Half of me thinks it would be better to at least wait up until 11ish now, instead of my normal 9 pm.

This was not in MAPPS class!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh the Agony!

Outside Photos Only

Well, with the flash non-repairable, we have been limited to outdoor pictures only so far, and in January those are few and far between. But here is what we have been up to in Jan. I can't believe it is gone though. We have been plagued by everything imaginable I think. The latest count has been an ear infection for our oldest, which she is happily over now, bronchitis for the youngest, which she just finished up her antibiotics, and pneumonia for Christine, which is finally starting to clear up after two rounds on antibiotics and prednisone. I typically LOVE winter; however, I will be all too happy to usher this one out.

Oh, we also had an interesting surprise in Jan. when one sunny afternoon I ventured out to mess with the horses, only to discover Black Beauty was making a bag. Sometime between now and the middle of March, we will be adding an addition to the farm, which the girls are quite excited about. However, with all this baby/pregnant talk the girls have taken to role playing with their baby dolls. They walk around the house with the babies up under their shirt and then, at any given moment the babies fall out and they are mommies. Cheyenne and Lexi both keeping asking when they can be a mommy. For now they are quite satisfied with, "When you are responsible enough to take good care of a baby, like feed it, have a house for it, and a job". And it has led to good conversations about how to take good care of a baby and what a mommy should be like. And for now, we are feeling overjoyed that they haven't asked, "How do babies get in to a mommies tummy"?

Cheyenne and Lexi feeding the goats hay. Cheyenne is much happier about being outside than Lexi - she is about a 10 min. kind of girl. And Meeka is finally warming up to the girls, after many scratches and hurt feelings.

Major Set-back

Well, over the holidays our camera bit the dust, so the blog entrees may slow down a bit. I am hoping it is just the flash and it can cheaply be repaired - if not, we will have to save up for a new camera. Keep your fingers crossed.

New Years Eve Christmas

This year we decided to have our family together on New Years Eve and it was actually rather nice - to celebrate the end of the year with family. Th only downer was that Mom and Dad were sick and had just gotten back from Iowa City Hospital.



Kyler got stuffed Pokemon things, and a new fleece hat.



Lane got a camera, and then he was messing around with the girls make-up kit and the sparkle fairy threw up all over him.



Thank-you Julie, for giving The girls a Hannah Montana dress-up kit - we love the pink hairs that shed daily.




Princess and Aunt Julie trying out the make-up kit Aunt Julie got them.

Swimming Outing

Over Christmas break, We got a room at Fun City and discovered that the girls are great swimmers. Our younger one is much more adventurous about going without a life jacket - but her sissy was no scaredy cat. We also took the older child care kids with us, and Lane and Kyler. We all had a great day and enjoyed getting out, when the weather was so crappy outside. The kids all play so well together - it will be fun watching them all go up together.

Merry Christmas

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! We got everything we wanted, except John's front left tooth, but he will get that on the 5th.

Rock'n around the Christmas Tree, Christmas Eve.

Amoung the Chaos - can you even see us?

Thank-you Grandma and Grandpa Trochesset, we love our dresses!

More pictures to come later, after I recoupe :)