Crafty Days

Well, Mikayla has been sick this week. It started with a stuffy nose and sneezing. Now it's a fever, cough, sore throat, and stuffy/runny nose. Despite her being sick, the dentist still wanted to see her today considering they're booked till June. We tried a new dentist for the girls today and I'm so glad I switched. We were going to Apollo and it wasn't as "kid friendly" as I would want. We went to Denistry for Children and Adolescents today. (If you're in town, check out their website if you are thinking of switching to a new dentist too: http://www.dentistryforchildrenrochester.com/first_visit.htm )They first did an education thing where the girls got to sit in the dentist chair together and played with puppets that had teeth. Every tool that they were going to use they let the kids practice on the puppets with them. Then while we waited for the dentist, we watched a super funny video that I even laughed at. Then the dentist gave the girls each a little hand mirror and asked them to look in their mouths as she examined them. Then Kayla headed off to get her teeth cleaned. She got to choose any movie she wanted. They had little headphones (it helped to block out the sound of the cleaning tools). She even got to wear sunglasses so the bright light wouldn't bother her eyes. She did pretty good, but still got nervous after awhile and they decided to cut the exam short. They are more focused on making the dentist a fun place than forcing a cleaning and having them dread the dentist. Something I did discover was that Kayla is getting in her 6 year old molars. I didn't know about this happening. I guess they are part of her permanent set of teeth and 3 of them have already broken through. We were also told that we really really need to wean Elyana from the pacifier due to her overbite. I'm totally aware of this and I am the one that doesn't have the guts to do it. Nate said he might do it when I have my ladies weekend away in a few weeks. That would for sure earn him the Man of the Year award (which he should already receive for a zillion other things he's done recently!).

We've been doing more crafty indoors activities to pass the time. Here are some pictures. I love this one of Elyana. She did this to herself when I stepped out of the room of course.


And here is a toilet I made out of play dough for Mikayla's Polly Pocket dolls. I think it looks pretty good!

Valentine's Day

We had a pretty decent weekend, especially considering the crazy week we just had. We ran errands, went to church, Nate got the oil and oil filters changed on the vehicles, I make an awesome diaper cake (for a baby shower I'm helping host next weekend), and we each got to go to the gym. I had such a good workout today; I biked for about 20 minutes and swam a good mile. I hope our week won't get swamped again and I won't get more workouts in. My goal is to get my sleep issues settled so I can wake up early and work out. I finally have a consultation this Thursday at Mayo's sleep clinic.

Mikayla was so excited about Valentine's day at school this week. She was so into it that she wore a heart patterned dress, hot pink tights, AND her toes and fingernails were painted red and pink patterned. Here's a picture of her making a V for Valentines:



Mikayla has really been having a growth spurt lately. It's amazing to see the kid eat! For example, her afternoon "snack" today consisted of half a banana, a corn dog, and a bowl of cereal! It's pretty common for her to eat a good dinner, come downstairs, and ask for a snack. Wish I could say the same about Ellie. They seem to have switched. Ellie is finally wearing some of her 24 month pants!

Mikayla now has two loose teeth. The bottom front two. We have a dentist appointment this week with a new children's dentist I'm trying. I hope it goes better than last time! I've been encouraging Kayla to teach Ellie how to brush her teeth better. I love these pictures of them practicing. Yes, Ellie is pantsless. We are also making a little more progress on potty training. She will use the potty before naptime and bedtime (for an M and M of course).

New Organizer

I bought another organizer for our house at Target. I really love this one. Only 39.99 too.



Also, I'm beginning to get some medical test results back. I don't want to say what they're finding until I have all the results back so I'll post something later this week... We did have a roofer come out to examine the leak. Good news. We have a cracked vent that some snow blew into and melted. It should only be $50 to replace once spring comes. If we get anymore snow though, we might have to climb up on the roof and brush it away from the vent to prevent more leaking. So, we're hoping for an early spring and no more snow. Anyone find out what the groundhog yesterday predicted? I never heard. If it's 6 more weeks of winter I"m going to personally hunt down that groundhog. I can't take anymore winter!

Finally, Elyana did one of the grossest things ever last night. The girls were brushing their teeth together and I passed by the bathroom to check on their progress. I saw Elly dip her toothbrush in Mikayla's toothpaste spit and then brush her teeth. Yuck, yuck, yuck!!!!!! If you have a grosser story, I'd like to know.

When It Rains It Pours!

It is nice that all this snow is finally melting. However, for some reason as it's melting, we have water dripping through our dining room light fixture and onto our kitchen table! Of course Nate is out of town today.

Tom and Jerry and Charter Communications

I woke up with pink eye today for the 2nd time this month, the cold that began a month ago rages on, and the night sweats that began 2 years ago continue nightly. My body is ultimately run down and I can't figure out how to bring my immune system back up to normal. My appointments at the clinic went well today. I picked up some kit to measure my oxygen level at night with and had an ultrasound of my thyroid and lymph nodes done. Tomorrow I get to have some blood work done and begin my 24 hour pee collection. In three weeks I'm having more blood work done, an appointment with the sleep clinic, and if nothing else turns up then a full body CT scan will be ordered. I'm trying to stay positive but am beginning to feel a bit down.

I am so thankful for the constant laughter that we have in our home. The newest thing is the girls absolutely love watching Tom and Jerry. They just bust out laughing at it every time. I was so thankful it was on tonight because it provided tons of laughs. I can't believe that show is still airing!

Oh yeah, one last thing. Not sure if I mentioned that we got sick of Charter messing up our bills, telling us one thing and charging us another. We switched our TV to Digital Satellite and our Internet to Qwest. It's a high speed that runs through our phone line. We couldn't be happier with both services! A few days ago we received a mysterious check from them. Today we heard the news and immediately deposited the check. In case you haven't heard, here are some news snippets:
"On January 28, 2009, Charter Communications reportedly filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Four former executives received criminal indictments in 2005 for accounting fraud related primarily to the inflation of cable subscriber numbers. The company has been under financial pressure; its stock peaked at $27.75 per share in November 1999, before falling to under $1 in 2002.^[3]

Charter has been criticized for poor customer support and frequent billing consistency issues, causing the Better Business Bureau to post ^[9] a warning to consumers about the company:

The Better Business Bureau has received numerous complaints regarding this cable, digital TV, and high speed Internet access provider. Complainants primarily allege that the firm had improper billing practices, referred customer bills to collection agencies in error, provided poor customer service, used misleading advertising, provided defective Internet or cable performance, used improper sales tactics or misrepresented the actual costs of installation and service, failed to properly install or maintain service, damaged customers' property, and failed to honor service appointments.

PCWorld also ranked Charter's cable Internet service as worst among 14 major Internet service providers.^[10] Charter High-Speed is the second-worst-rated cable ISP on dslreports.com ^[11] and Consumer Reports indicated in their February 2008 issue that Charter's television/Internet/telephone bundle collectively is the worst of all major national carriers."

Catching Up

I'm not sure where to start since it's been so long since I've posted something. I'm still struggling with my health a bit and am getting behind on a few things. I get to have a neck ultra sound tomorrow and then I get to collect my pee for 24 hours. Fun Fun! I'm eager to figure out what's going on so I can get busy with my 3rd Triathlon training! Let me catch you up on the girls now.

ELYANA

This blows our mind...she's reading somehow. We made flash cards of the list of words Mikayla needs to learn this year in Kindergarten. Ellie picked them up a few days ago and began to read words such as: yellow, blue, green, go, see, the, two. The ones she didn't know she'd ask. After I told her, she would repeat them quietly to herself as if she was making a mental note of them. We watched an old home video of Ellie just learning to sit up by herself and was pretending to read a book to herself. She has always had her nose in a book. What I'd like to know is how she figured out how to read on her own. I was wondering if it would bug Mikayla, but she seems to think it's fun doing flash cards with Ellie and playing teacher. The funny thing is, it's motivated me to get her potty trained because it's in my head that the natural order of things is: wean from the bottle, learn to walk, potty train . . . go to school and learn to read. It seems unnatural that the milestones should be out of order.

The other thing is nap time is slowing being fazzed out which is really difficult for me. After battling with her for an hour yesterday, I went in to see what she needed again and she says, "My little feet are hot." Too cute. At least that's one I haven't heard before!

Here's a picture of her first braid in her hair. Doesn't she look so grown up?!

MIKAYLA

She's still loving school but it's hard to get her going in the morning. She's also making good strides in Awana on Wed. nights. She's trying to learn the books of the New Testament. This is something I'm trying to learn along with her. On Thurs. nights she's been taking gymnastics. We tried having Ellie take a gymnastics class that started about the same time, but I think she has a little more growing up to do. It was way more of a battle than I desire right now. Mikayla had another Mikaylaism the other night. We were admiring how cool the crescent moon looked. She said to me, "It looks like a big toenail clipping." I'll never look at a crescent moon the same way.

The girls have started to dress up together (Ellie is trying to understand the concept and calls it "Halloween time") and put on "shows" for us. Mikayla of course is the main star and calls Ellie her assistant. After about 15 seconds, the assistant runs away and Mikayla is yelling, "come back, come back, we're not done with the show." Here's some pictures of their show costumes. (By the way, Aunt Cyndi, if you're reading this, Kayla's show name is Cyndi.)

She's Officially Growing Up

Mikayla has her first loose tooth. It's interesting that Elyana is getting in her last tooth at the same time. Man, I'm not ready for this. She's growing up too fast and I'm not ready to let go at all! I'm sure there will be a post soon with a picture of our toothless daughter.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Next month is Mikayla's half birthday. I only know it's her half birthday because they celebrate it in school. Mikayla is starting to plan it as if it's another real birthday. I had this thought last night of, "What should I get her?" Then I realized the kid is starting to get me worked up about it too. Very sneaky!

Ellie is feeling a bit better today. I'm thankful for the antibiotics. I'm very thankful for awesome insurance. I didn't hesitate to take her in yesterday. I didn't have to wonder how much the visit will cost. When they needed to do x-rays, I didn't have to wonder how much that bill would be. We are very lucky and I'm constantly thankful for Nate's job at Mayo. I'm a bit nervous though of how health insurance will change with our new president taking over today. Yikes.