More videos

Cute video from this morning. Don't mind the bed-head!

From Xbos this weekend.

Phone conversation

This is a real conversation that happened this morning when Addie called Muddy and Guppy to see if they wanted to go to lunch. I sat with my ear near the phone and didn't say a word. 100% Addie's own thoughts/responses. You just can't beat some things!!

Muddy: Hello?
Addie: Hi Muddy
M: Hello my sweetie pie, how are you?
A: Good. Want to drink a soda?
M: You want me to drink a soda?
A: Yes at the soda party
M: A soda party? Where’s that?
A: A soda party at La Tolteca tomorrow night
M: A soda party at La Tolteca tomorrow night?
A: Yes.
M: What are we celebrating?
A: Christmas
M: You’re calling to invite me to a soda party tomorrow night at La Tolteca to celebrate Christmas?
A: Yes!
M: You know what Addie?
A: What?
M: I love you so much.
A: I love you so much too Scrappy.

Just life

Not anything fascinating happening. Here's the stories from this weekend:
Friday night was Brian's birthday dinner at LaTolteca. His parents, Scott, Graham, us and Onkteb and Aunt Gail were all there. Besides the fact that it was incredibly late by the time we were seated and ate, the kids did marvelously well. Ben managed to walk into a table and hit at the exact spot where his big bruise is- so that was swelling up.
Once home we had cake and that's when Ben's silliness ensued. From the video posted on Saturday, you can surely see and hear what a loon he was being. I'm pretty sure he didn't go to bed until 10:30!
Saturday we went to Xbos in Smyrna. It's an indoor play place. Muddy and Guppy were there too. Ask Muddy next time you see her, if there's anything like spiraling down the tube slide from 3 stories up! Guppy was a trooper and went through all of the obstacles just like a 3 year old. :)
Both kids still have gross coughs. Poor Addie had a tickle so bad in her throat that she actually got sick over the weekend. I went to change her sheets, and she said, "Mommy, I'm just so tired." So I ended up throwing some towels down over her sheets and she slept.
Oh yeah I should add that Ben and Muddy were playing at Xbos during lunch, tilting their heads one way or the other being very cutesy. Ben then misjudged his tilt and smacked his mouth on the table. Blood. Split lip from the inside. No stitches though.
That's life right now. Addie has become the fashion icon at daycare for showing up two days in a row with new boots! She thinks she's so cool too- she even told Ms. Sarah, the Assistant Director, "no, these are my boots!" when she said she wanted a pair. LOL

Videos of hilarity!!

Here are some great videos from this weekend. Last night was Brian's birthday party, after La Tolteca. The first video is of Ben and Mom Mom playing. I started filming about 4 minutes into this behavior. Seriously, he was drunk with humor and couldn't get it under control!

This is from Xbos today, where we went with Muddy, Guppy, Uncle Scott, Graham and Mom Mom. I have a couple versions of this same thing happening. He's like the Energizer Bunny- he keeps going.

Tomorrow I'll post pictures of Friday night and some more videos of Xbos.

Oh Aunt Amanda......

Happy Birthday (Aunt) Amanda!!!
Hope it was a great day!! We love you!!

Lots o pics today

It was a nice day home with my kids. Like I said in an earlier blog, music is such an important part of their lives. It's pretty cool, actually. My kids can't hear with beat without jamming to it. I am always surprised at other children at La Tolteca who just sit still while the band is playing. Ben bops up and down in the highchair all through dinner. :) Oh yeah, if any reader of my blog happens to know a child version of "Name That Tune" that's casting 2 year old kids, please send me that info. Addie hears the first 1/2 note of a song and knows what it is. Seriously, it's uncanny.

A good portion of the morning was spent playing the empty Pampers box.

Here he's all tucked in inside the box. I love his expression.

A cute one from dinnertime (and yes, I just realized how nasty the seat cover of his highchair is!)

Again, talk about pride. Could he look anymore pleased with himself?

Addie rationing out kisses. She'll say, "No, I'm going to blow you a kiss." or "I don't have anymore kisses. Tomorrow you'll get them."

And a little video to provide some insight into what my life is like LOL. Watch how cute Ben is moving!!

A new record set!!

Ladies and gentlemen, I am so proud to announce that the Nourie family has accomplished yet another first (and record) at daycare!!! At 12:15 this afternoon, the director called me at work to say that Ben was in one of the cars, decided to stand up and then proceeded to fall headfirst onto the floor. As Irene said, "he's got a big goose egg, huge goose egg, it's really, really big." He cried right away, didn't throw up and was allowing them to ice it- so I said to call me if something changed. When I got to daycare Ms. Sarah informed me that I had TWO incident reports to sign, as Ben had just fallen off a chair and smacked his chin on the ground! So, Benjamin Nourie has successfully become the only child in Kindercare history to receive two incident reports in the same day! I'm so proud.


Here's some pictures of his bump, which when I saw it it just looks bruised, not swollen at all. The teachers told me, "it looks WAAAAAY better now." I can only imagine what it looked like when it happened!!

It's a little out of focus, but you can see the purple

Can you see it there?

Ben was happy to play peek-a-boo while eating teddy bear pasta.

Addie mid-sentence at dinner
Tonight in the car, she said, "Mommy, these kids are driving me crazy!" LOL. Where has she heard that before? And who knew that Ben enjoys climbing on things?

Lovin' some music

We know our kids are musically inclined. Well, at least, they love to dance to music. Right now we're listening to a mixture of songs On Demand. Here are some of the kids' favorites:
Sean Kingston- Beautiful Girl
Big & Rich- Lost in the Moment
Chuck Wicks- Stealing Cinderella
Colbie Callat- Bubbly

Tomorrow is "wear your pjs to daycare day." I fully expect a fight tomorrow morning from Addie. Every morning we clearly go through a "pjs are for night-night" routine. Tomorrow she'll actually tell me that she can't wear her pjs to daycare. I have started priming her, though by telling Addie that tomorrow we're going to be really silly and wear our pjs to daycare. We'll see!

Best mail ever!

We got a little package in the mail yesterday from Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Amanda. The card said that the bigger gift was for Brian and I; the other for Addie and Ben. The card said that "really it's just too much gift for one person." I could not for the life of me figure out what it could be.

Here's Addie showing off her's:

The kids were sent a collection of cat and skull tattoos. *Remember Uncle Jeremy sent these*
Here is Brian so happily showing off our gift. We both laughed out loud SO much over this!

I mean, who doesn't need the New England 2008 tidelog?

How Ben is spending his time nowadays:


Finally "Betty." I really don't see what the big deal is, but both Brian and Aunt Kim commented on Ben's pjs.

Snow!!!

Well it's been snowing here all afternoon. The weather men all reported this morning we may have a chance of flurries, but that's it. WRONG!! The kicker of it all is that Muddy and Guppy arrive back in Philadelphia at 4:30pm today, amidst the snow. Remember that is why they went to vacation in California for 3.5 weeks?! To avoid snow. Not joking at all, not one dusting of snow has occurred since they left. And now they get to come home to this!!!!

Surprise, surprise!

Ben is on an antibiotic now. Major shock here. At 3:30pm yesterday daycare called to tell me that Ben had a fever. Shock again.





The poor kid is so congested, but he's not willing to back down on eating and nursing.

This shows his haircut a little better

How sad is this picture? Don't mind the chocolate and snot. You can see how sick he feels.

This was today, just before my camera battery died. So there's not more pictures from today.

Sickies

Bleh! Ben is really not feeling well. At daycare yesterday he had a fever of 102.4 when I picked him up. Poor little bug. His nose is really runny, but it's clear (TMI, I know.). I'm not sure if the fever is a combo of his respiratory infection and teething or what. No matter how you slice it, he's not feeling 100%. I gave him Motrin before heading to work today, but I'm fully expecting the "he's sick, come pick him up" phone call by this afternoon. I know it's not fair necessarily to send him in, but he's not green-snot-gross- so he's there. Not to mention between all of last week's drama, I have work that I need to do at work. Go figure.

Bye Bye Curls!

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Benjamin's first haircut.


Obviously thrilled with the idea!

Addie was excited to go though, because she gets Swedish fish while at the Barber Shop

A good idea of what we were working with beforehand!

the very 1st cut

such a big boy!

he did so well

Loved the feel of the clippers vibrating

Almost done!

the end result, with the rewarding lollipop!

Slice of life

So happy!

Now you can see why!! LOL

Out for the count this afternoon

Big sister was too!

Crappy day yesterday

Yesterday was Uncle John's funeral. Sad.

On my way back to work, daycare called to tell me that Addie had a seizure and was really out of it and not responding. I was on my way there. When I got there the ambulance was there. I ran in, and saw her laying on the floor of the office, with her teachers around her and the 2 EMTs watching her. I picked her up and said let's get the hospital. The director said she'd be seizing for 6 minutes at that point. By the time we got going in the ambulance at least 10 minutes of seizures had happened. They continued the 15 minutes to the hospital. Long story short, a nurse realized she was still seizing, (which I had been saying the whole time) even though the EMTs said she wasn't. She was rushed in to the trauma room and attacked by nurses and doctors. She came out of the seizures on her own. Not kidding, she was like this....seizing, seizzzzing, seiizzzing, seizzzzing, "Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa lalalalalalalala." and she was done with seizures. She sangs songs for the nurses and doctors, the regular Addie routine.
All of the blood and urine tests came back negative for anything. It's a simple viral infection. She's just the lucky girl who gets to have a peaking fever each time there's an infection. In the hospital, her fever was 104.9- that's 30 minutes after her seizures started, so who knows what it was when it spiked.
We went to the pediatrician today, who did a strep culture which was also negative. Daycare will now have a stash of emergency seizures meds for her too.
Honestly, she's so resilient. You would never know she was so off for a while yesterday. The only indicators left are the three electrode pads on her chest, which we have called her "buttons." She's especially proud of them and has lifted her shirt today for everyone to see. She refused a bath this morning, because she didn't want her buttons to fall off. If you ask her why she has them, she'll tell you "I had surgery." and "The doctor said I was hot." LOL. Here's to an amazing kid!

Daredevil

I know I shouldn't be surprised, based on the standing on top of everything that Benjamin has decided to partake in. However, he has started the tradition of head-diving INTO the bathtub. Now we have a very deep bathtub, by typical standards, so he really has to want to get into the tub. Aye caramba. Now the bathroom door has to be closed at all times, not just the toilet lid! I swear, Addie never tried to get into the tub by herself.
Other news, Addie was invited to her first birthday party for a friend at daycare. Well, it's actually a girl in her class. Not sure how much friends they really are. And the downside, it'll be held at Chuck E. Cheese! If you remember when we went there, Brian swore off ever stepping foot in there again. So we'll see. I asked her last night if she was friends with XXXXX and she said "no." LOL.

This is my new background on my computer. You can see the pure thrill in their eyes and smiles! It's also good to know that Addie won't take her eyes off the road when she's driving!

Life

So the video from Sunday night is of the kids once they realized that they can ride the train without the track down. Since then, it's been crashed into many a wall in our house.

We got the sad news on Sunday that my Uncle John had taken his life. Muddy ended up flying back from California to be with her sister and my cousins. We picked her up last night from Philly. The only plus-side was that she got to see Addie and Ben and vice versa. Please keep Karen, Kellianne, Casey and Cathryn plus all of their kids in your thoughts. This was a surprising event that will forever change their lives.

FUN!

The pride of the family

Back to the grind

Well one official day back to work and daycare is under our belts. Addie and Ben were superstars as usual. They had a ton of fun. Congressman Mike Castle came to daycare today, since Delaware is doing a big push for children to attend a pre-school that's accredited before enrolling in kindergarten. We'll have to see if they made the paper or the news.

Poor Benjamin's teeth are really making him sore. Look at these red cheeks!


This next picture I call "San Francisco Zoo" (ok, that's kind of sick, I admit it)


Here's a picture of Rollo and Addie. This was after Addie decided that Rollo needed to be warmer while Addie got a bath.

"Little Fella"

This is what Addie has now resorted to calling Ben. "Come here, little fella." "Oh fank you, little fella." "I love you, little fella." It's very sweet.
Also I forgot to mention a major shift that happened over Christmas, in Addie's world. She received two new babies as gifts. Now, she is the proud Mommy to 19 babies. Obsessed I tell you! But nonetheless, for the first time ever, she has named these two babies something other than Baby! The baby she got from Santa is named Rollo. The baby from Mom Mom and Poppop is Look. No idea about where she got the names from. She's never had the candy Rollo.
Last night as I put Ben down for bed, he was still awake in his crib. He was on his belly with his blanket over him and I was patting his back. He rolled on his side, with the blanket over his face, stuck his hand up and waved to me! Then he rolled the other way and did it again. It took everything in me to not pick him up and cuddle him extra hard then. Ahhhhhh it was so sweet.
I have a dentist appointment this afternoon. Thank God for reminder phone calls. Seriously, when I schedule an appointment 6 months from now, I am not going to remember when the time comes.

Happy New Year!

Not much to report today. The New Year came in with no big fanfare here. We were all asleep, in fact. Well, it may have been one of the 15 minute stints of sleep that Ben had last night. Let me tell you, there weren't many of them. Mommy is t-i-r-e-d. He's got 4 teeth trying to break through, so I feel for him.
We watched the Tournament of Roses parade. Addie yelled, "Muddy, Guppy, where are you?" at the screen the whole time. I'm sure they had a blast. Our high school alma mater's band played too, so that was neat to see, even though Al Roker butchered every detail about them, including calling the school a college!
Off to get baths now, and then have bedtime stories. Tomorrow is the kids' last day off, so we're trying to get back into schedules.
Our outside decorations are all put away now. The tree is gone. Christmas cards are down. Soon I'll have my house back!! And then it's time to start planning a certain 3 year old's birthday party! (For which I have not a clue yet what we are doing, fyi)