back to school!

well, i guess all good things must end. nina's back as school, and maggie and i had to deal with missing her all day. :-( worse, we had to deal with getting up at 6:30 in the morning again! i think all 3 of us were sleepy today. well, maggie fell asleep nice and early tonight, but nina had a headache and was still coughing, so it took her longer (about 8:00). hopefully that'll be enough for her to wake up refreshed tomorrow.

maggie and i had a mellow day. we made some yellow playdough, played with that, visited with her friend Hattie for a bit, picked up nina and the girl i tutor at school, came home, and i tutored while the girls played with the playdough. maggie was pretty calm and even-tempered, and nina was really quiet because she was so tired. oh, and maggie doesn't drop the f-bomb on us anymore. she says "fudge" and "fudging" instead. she came up with this substitution on her own. i'm so proud of her?

a birthday party today and family movie night

tonight's movie is maggie's pick. she picked a my little pony movie. nick elected to take a shower instead (say, that's been some long shower!). i think he just doesn't want to watch the movie! bad nick. he doesn't know what he's missing; i'm loving the bad queen's bronx accent. haha!

earlier today we were at a friend's son's second birthday party. the girls had a good time, but nina started to feel sick again at the end. her temp's been about 99.2 since this afternoon. hopefully she starts to turn the corner soon! poor kid.

not much else to report. tomorrow is the last day of vacation! oh my!!

still loving school vacation week!

it's so fun having nina home all day. look at the smiles on her and maggie's faces! i wish i could just keep her home all the time, but she doesn't want me to homeschool her. :-( she says she likes school too much! not fair!! nina is my sweet little girl, and i don't want to share her with her teacher! well, i'm glad she likes it there so much, and very glad she has such a wonderful teacher. maybe maggie will want to stay home with me... she hasn't made too much progress on separation (well, there's dance class, playing over at her friend hattie's house, the occasional activity with nick and nina, like swimming at the Y, and going to grandmas). actually, she has made a lot of progress, hasn't she?! i offered to leave her and nina home today while i went to the grocery store, but maggie was having none of that. nina jumped at the chance though, she hates the grocery store. well, anyway, we'll see what the future brings. sometimes it's easy to forget that maggie is only three and a half.

ah, be still my heart!

i've written about princess celestia, yes? the pony that maggie and nina wanted for months and months and finally got for christmas? when you push a button on her, her wings light up and she say one of maybe a dozen phrases. well, today nina wrote down everything she said, in order, so that she would be able to know what princess celestia was going to say next. my little scientist! i was so proud of her!
unfortunately, when we played through the phrases again, they were in a different order. nina was so disappointed! she really wanted to put a barrette in princess lestia's hair (as she is also known), and have her say "my barrettes are so pretty!" fortunately, it turns out that celestia just repeats two versions of the list, so nina only had to record the other version to figure out exactly what she will say. it was just too cute. when she was done, i saw nina sitting on the couch with princess celestia, brushing her hair, and then pushing the button so she would say "i love it when you comb my hair!" what a sweet, wonderful, fun child!

then, there was maggie, who told me at dinner that i'm "from the planet dumb." thanks girl, i'm going to remember that one when you're a teenager. well, i in fact am not going to remember it, but that's what i have this blog for. so sometime, maybe a dozen years from now, i will re-read this, remember that night at dinner, when you started off by being a cute robot from the planet snurf, and it devolved into me being from the planet dumb. good thing you're so darn cute!

vacation week!!

it's so nice to have nina home this week! i miss her when she's gone at school all day. :-( so does maggie, and she's as thrilled as i am to have nina home this week.

unfortunately, we woke up this morning to no electricity! there was a car accident on route 27 that took out a telephone pole at about 7:15. it was chilly in the morning too, and the house was getting cold, so we took the girls for some hot cocoa and belgian waffles at mama d's in town. nick could work there because they have wifi, and we had a fun time! one of nina's classmates was there too, and the girls got to play so nick could get even more work done. the power came back on at about 10:00, but we stayed a bit longer so it would have time to heat up.

after that, we stayed in. the girls are still getting over the last of the sniffles (and so am i), so we just wanted to rest.

i'm looking forward to enjoying the rest of the week!

it's nice to know i'm appreciated

today, after a rather melt-down prone afternoon, maggie looked at me and said, "there is a mom that is the greatest in the world; grandma."

my heart was still for a moment, anticipating that she was going to say me, obviously. but no, she built me up just to shoot me down. oh well, i forgive her. mom is pretty great, and last night maggie just wanted to snuggle with me all night long. so i know she loves me.

in exciting news, nina shot her first basket today! nick is brimming with pride. she said she just threw it up, and swoosh, it went it.

as for me, i'm finally over the stomach bug. unfortunately, i caught a slight head cold on wednesday, and i've been sneezing like mad. nina and maggie had it too, but they got over it easily. i seem to be getting over the worst of it too, so hopefully i'll be back up to 100% soon.

nina and her camera, again. i should number these.

i used nina's camera to take photos of the valentines the girls made me. then i downloaded the pictures, and got a chuckle when i saw what nina has been photographing.




that kid is too funny!

happy valentine's day!

here are the valentines the girls made me. cute!

this one, although signed "nina," is from maggie. remember she likes to call herself nina these days. this is bugging the real nina, who suggested maggie start calling herself "sarah" instead. we'll see if that sticks.

another one from "nina." note the ponies, that's pretty much all she draws. today when the appraiser was here for the mortgage refinance, she walked up to him and said, "so, do you like ponies?" the kid is a laugh a minute! we also went to visit the triplets today, and the visit went so well. no swearing, no potty talk, she even wanted them to sit on her lap while she read to them! then, i pushed my luck and stayed 5 minutes too long. just before we left, she announced, "i'm sick of the triplets, i want to go home." fortunately, jamie just laughed.

and this one is from the real nina. she put so much work into it! all this work for me, when it was her half-birthday. i'm the luckiest mom ever. :-)
oh, and nick got me some chocolates. i made pulled pork for dinner, which is nothing if not a man valentine. i guess we're all just a bunch of hopeless romantics around here!

another sick day

last night maggie went to bed with a temp of 99.7 and nina went to bed with a sore throat, tummy ache, and the sniffles. poor kids! they slept alright, but nina stayed home today. her nose was runny, tummy was aching off and on, and the sore throat came and went too. hopefully she feels well tomorrow, she's so excited for valentine's day at school. plus it's her half birthday!!

maggie was cranky all day. she alternates the cranky with the ultra cute, having recently coined such phrases as "you're not my kind of father/sister/mother" when she's annoyed with one of us (frequently) and "holy noley!" (which means "no!").

disney on ice!!!!!!!!

what a hit! the girls LOVED it. almost as much as i did! ha! fantastic skating, costumes, and of course music. maggie liked rapunzel the best, they sang the lanterns song (click here to see it on you tube! if you haven't seen the movie, you totally should!). nina says the whole thing was her favorite part, but if she has to pick one, it's tangled too.

after the show, we went to dinner at richard's in brunswick. it's a german restaurant, and it was very, very good. nina loved her soup and schnitzel, and when we told her she was going to eat like that all year in austria, she was so excited. maggie too. it helped that we topped our lovely meal off with a piece of sacher torte. mmmm!

maggie had fallen asleep on the way to portland and didn't wake up until we parked the car. she was still kind of groggy when we got to our seats, and was shaking a bit when she took her coat off. i said, "oh, you're shaking, are you cold?" and she said, "no, i'm shaking with excitement!" too cute! thank you erik and isabelle!!

mostly better

i'm about 90% better. on tuesday, i was so, so, sooooooooooooo tired that i fell asleep at 9 and didn't wake up until 6:30. that doesn't look as crazy remarkable as it felt! and, by "didn't wake up until," i of course mean didn't wake up much, as some darling little ones still wake me up every night. but they go back to sleep quickly for the most part, so it's not too too bad. the point is, i got some good sleep, and i'm feeling much better.

the girls are good. maggie kept saying things were "ridiculous" the other day (it sounds like "wuh-dic-lee-ous" when she says it, because she's not pronouncing her R's yet), and then coined the term "ridicliotic," which is hysterical.

we went skating after school today, it was perfect skating weather. nina is so good!

i got sick.

:-(

poor me! it was the throwing up bug. i seem to be over it now though, so it's all good. nina and maggie took great care of me. nina stayed home from school on thursday to play with maggie and help me out. well, that and i was way too sick to get her off to school. i'd woken nick up a few times overnight too, so he wasn't too eager to get her up and off either. well, it worked out for the best! the girls had a great day together, i got a long nap in, and i got a lot better. i'm still tired and getting my appetite back, but definitely on the mend.

quick funny: the girls were discussing the fact that the trash man (our illustrious neighbor larry) used to live in our home. nina said, "but the trash man didn't mess up our house," and maggie responded, "no, we did!"

haha! true, true. our home is a jumble of toys. toys with strings tied to them.

nina still loves her camera

here are some of her latest photos. the girls and i have been laughing hysterically at them!



i know they're kind of washed out, but what you can see of her expression is just so funny! i love when she does self-portraits!