i shouldn't have asked

Last night, E and I were talking, and (of course) our conversation turned to Santa. I asked her what she thought Santa was going to bring her. Usually, her answer is "I don't know" and I use that opportunity to "suggest" fun items that Santa might bring her (that may or may not already be stashed in the trunk of John's car). But, tonight, instead of "I don't know" she said,

"A baby in a box with a bottle of milk and a bottle of orange juice."

When we went to the toy store on Saturday to pick up presents for Madelyn and Ellie, E was fascinated with the baby doll section. Apparently, it was more than a passing fascination, and she might actually want a baby doll for Christmas. The only problem? Those plastic baby dolls freak me out. I mean, they are really, really creepy to me.

Oh the sacrifices that motherhood forces you to make...

another "to do" checked off...

So I ordered the family Christmas card today. I think it will turn out pretty cute. I do have one picture of the girls together, but because the aren't smiling in it, I have indivdual smiling shots as well. If they suck, nothing we can do about it now anyway. Of course, we have already received Steel Magnolia's card, which is GORGEOUS. John, ever so supportive husband that he is, took one look and said, "Their card kicks our card's ass!" Nice.

Anyway, here's a look at what the Slacker card might have been. It's a design that didn't win out in the end. But it was cute, so I thought I'd share.

And, in case you are wondering, our actual card won't actually say from the Slackers...

busy little bees

This weekend was jam-packed full of activity! We spent Saturday morning decorating the house and the tree for Christmas. After A's nap in the afternoon, we headed into Fairfax to get birthday presents for A and E's friends, Madelyn and Ellie. Since the stores were jam-packed, we headed to Coastal Flats for an early dinner and then back home.

On Sunday, we got up and did a little divide and conquer. John and E headed to The Teets for our weekly grocery trip. I took A to AC Moore, where we got a lot of Christmas shopping done. They have a pretty extensive Melissa and Doug section, so I got A's big present (a little piano), a puzzle for each girl, stacking blocks for A and lacing beads for E. I also got them some stocking stuffers, too. So, we've got to get a few more things, but we are almost done with our shopping. Woo hoo!

We met back up at home, and then headed out again for Madelyn and Ellie's birthday party. It was at Toddlin' Time, which was a local version of Gymboree/Little Gym. The girls had a blast, running around, crawling through tunnels, going down the slides and playing with the parachute. After pizza and cake, we headed home. All was well until E threw up all over herself as we turned into our development. All of the running around and junk food did not agree with her little tummy. She had partied 'til she puked. We got her cleaned up and both girls went down for a nap for over two hours. Then it was a little more playtime, dinner, baths, and time for bed!

All in all, a busy weekend...but fun nonetheless!

an interesting twist on traffic

On the way home from shopping and dinner tonight, we got stuck in traffic. I know, you could have knocked us over with a feather. Anyway, it ended up being more congested than your run-of-the-mill traffic. E started to get impatient.

"Are we home yet?" she asked.
"No, E. We're trying to get there, but there's traffic," I replied.
"Why? Why is there traffic, mama?"
"Because someone had an accident and so now we're driving slowly," I told her.
"Well, let's hurry up and find out which girl had the accident. 'Cause I have to go potty too!"

the slackers are fakers!

So the Slacker family got up this morning, made some waffles and then headed on over to Lowe's to buy some Christmas decorations. We got lights for outside of the house and then, we passed by the artificial tree display. After some consternation, we caved and ended up getting one.

Now, I'm usually a live tree snob. However, this year, the fake tree seemed like the better idea. A is a climber and we're pretty sure that she would topple a tree. E is also capable of knocking the tree over. Also, we're travelling over Christmas and I have a fear that the Christmas tree will burn our house down ever since, well, the Christmas tree burned my house down when I was five. And, since we have had wind and rain and snow over the last week, the real trees were looking pretty rough.

So, a fake tree it was. And man, does it look fake. And sparse. Charlie Brown Christmas Tree sparse. But once we put on our garland and ornaments and a bow on top (since top branch buckled under the weight of the star tree topper we usually use), E proclaimed, "That's the most bee-you-tiful tree I've ever seen, Mommy!" And I've already had to rehang the beaded garland three times, thanks to A!

So, though I probably won't take a picture of the tree for you to see out of fear of ridicule, the girls are delighted with their tree. Which means I am, too.

necessity is the mother of invention

The girls each have their own PB Kids Everywhere Chairs (thanks Nonna and Pop-pop!) and they use them all the time.

A and E hanging out in their chairs

Lately, E has started building forts with them, too. Last weekend, she ended up climbing on top of chair forts despite my warnings. Therefore, both chairs got taken away for the rest of the day.This did not discourage E from sitting in a chair with A. Here are the solutions she came up with.

"Take our chairs, Mommy! You can't stop us!"

"Come here, A! Check out our new chairs!"

"Oh yeah, this one is much better!"

use your words!

It's all a bit blurry to me, but I'm pretty sure that A talks about the same amount that E did at the same age. However, E communicated to us her wants and needs through baby sign language. She signed More, Eat, Milk and then a couple of random ones, but it was more than enough to get her point across. But, A? A...not so much.

Don't get me wrong, A knows these what these signs mean. If you ask her to sign them, she will. However, if she wants milk or food or to get out of her high chair or for me to pick her up...pretty much anything...she forgoes the signing in favor of her new form of communication: screeching like a howler monkey. It's loud. It's worse than fingernails on a chalkboard. And tonight, it was constantly happening from the time she got home until the time she went to bed.

Dear lord, if you can't get her to start using her words sooner, can you at least give John and I a MUTE button for her? Or at least ear plugs?

who wore it best?

US Weekly and People and all those type magazines always have a little section where they show two starlets who (gasp!) are wearing the same dress. Ninety-nine percent of the time, it's a different event so it's really not that scandalous, but it's fun to see how each person looks different in the outfit and makes it their own.

Since A was born 25 months after E, she inherited a wealth of hand-me-downs. And since Grandmom and Nonna and Kiki and Aunt Noreen (and even yours truly) have impeccible taste when it comes to kids clothing, she's really a pretty lucky kid. But it always cracks me up to have pictures of both kids in the same outfit.

Every time I go to the storage bins, I think to myself "This is my favorite batch of clothing." The velour jumpsuits in 3 to 6 months...the Dandelion Dreams Gymboree collection in 6-12 months...the adorable sundresses and sunsuits in 12-18 months...I love them all. But one of my favorites is the winter coat and hat that A is currently wearing. Both girls just looked absolutely adorable in it.

So here are pictures of the girls, looking equally cute, in their winter gear. Interesting note, both pictures were taking on the first snowfall of the year (though in A's case it was 6 o'clock at night hence the indoor locale) exactly two years apart. Doing the math for you, E is 15 months and A is 14 months!

Hurricane E - December 5, 2005
Sweet Baby A - December 5, 2007

Updated to Add: Now my girls are up against Violet Affleck in the hat department. Bring it on!

how cute are these clothes????

Man, I'm loving Baby Gap's newest line of clothes for girls! The flowers! The stripes! The pink and green and navy! I seriously want to buy it all! Luckily, it seems rather spring-y (lots of short sleeved tops) so hopefully I can snag some stuff on sale in a few weeks. But I am getting the girls the flowered dress for a Christmas present! I figure they can wear it with a turtleneck and tights in the winter and then with a short-sleeved shirt or sleevess in the spring. Shhh...don't tell them!

making up for lost time

So, A's appetite over the previous two weeks had been rather supressed. I think it was a combination of being sick and teething (darn those molars!). But last week, Miss Aniya and Miss Idalia were both saying how she was eating very little.

Well, this week, the appetite's back with a vengence. Miss Idalia said that she ate her lunch at 11:15 this morning, had her snack early AND at the regular time, and when I went to pick her up was standing by the refrigerator pointing and sqwaking (her "sign" for eat). When she got home, she chugged a sippy of milk, split a banana and an apple with E, and then had a pretty good dinner of tacos and rice. She was opening her mouth so wide for the rice that I got to see that her top left molar was pretty much completely in. Yay! Two down, two to go.

For lunch tomorrow, I packed her a turkey and cream cheese roll-up, a yogurt, a fruit cup, 1 1/2 clementines, goldfish and a cheesestick. Which is more than I eat at lunch. I'll let you know how much she gets through tomorrow.

it's beginning to sound a lot like christmas

Since E has been asking pretty much every day when we are going to decorate for Christmas, I thought I'd surprise her yesterday by putting up a few things for when she got home from school. (Oh, the joys of working from home...) So, I replaced a couple of our hanging pictures with a Let it Snow sign, a jingle bell wreath, and a little Santa Claus; broke out the Christmas books; and put our mini tabletop tree on the kitchen island.

While E was very very very excited for these things, she loved the singing bears the most. The singing bears are two teddy bears dressed up in winter clothes. When you squeeze the girl bear's paw, they start singing "Winter Wonderland" and bobbing along to the music. This was given to us by a family friend who obviously hates me for Christmas when E was born. We listened to the high-pitched strains of "Winter Wonderland" approximately eleventy thousand times last night before bed.

Not to be outdone, A has her own favorite Christmas decoration. This would be the sleigh bells that I hung on the pantry doorknob. Shaking the bells kept her occupied for at least 5 minutes so I was able to get some of dinner prepared in relative peace.

And, after dinner, we had Slacker family craft. The girls colored pieces of paper that we cut into strips and made a paper chain to decorate the tree on the kitchen island. After the girls went to bed, I "repurposed" an art project that E had brought home from school to make a little star topper for the tree. It looks really cute!

E's Christmas enthusiasm is definitely rubbing off on me. This weekend, we're tackling decorating the outside of the house and perhaps even getting a Christmas tree. And on the way to work, I even put on the radio station that plays all Christmas music all the time. I used to be a bit bah-humbug about this holiday...but I must say that seeing the magic of the holiday through E's eyes has really changed my tune...literally.

hope e doesn't get any ideas

This is a picture of Heidi Klum and her three-year-old daughter, Leni. Cute kid...cute hair. And how did she get that haircut? Well...according to USA Today:

Klum recently treated Leni to a makeover after hair-combing became a struggle. Leni presented the hairstylist with a DVD of Dora the Explorer to show how she wanted her short new 'do to look.

new habits die hard

Totally forgot that each girl started new habits this weekend...neither of them are particularly desirable.

Sweet Baby A has become a bit of a biter. She bit E twice this weekend. In her defense, E was taking her toy away or blocking access to her toys when this happened, but still. She's starting to fight back against her big sis and I can see some catfights on the horizon Chez Slacker. E told me that Christopher should tell Santa that A shouldn't get any presents because she was biting...how do I explain my way out of that one!??!?

Speaking of E...not once, but twice on Saturday she stripped down nekkid and told me, "I think I'll spend the rest of the day naked, Mommy." I'll take her constantly changing of clothes over being a nudist any day...especially since it gets a bit nippy in our house in the winter months.

girls girls girls!

This weekend, John headed off to Hotlanta to meet up with his dad and brother for the SEC Championship. So, it was me and the girls for the weekend! We had lots of fun. On Friday, I picked them up from school, we came home and played for a bit, had some dinner (angel hair with butter, parmasean, and peas!) and ice cream, and then headed off to bed. Seriously. I pretty much climbed into bed after I put the girls down and watched What Not to Wear and the new Stacy London talk show (which is terrible) before hitting the hay myself.

On Saturday, we got up, watched some 'toons and then headed off to Target. I managed to pry E away from the hideous assortment of Dora bedding with promises of a new Dora toothbrush and Dora toothpaste. We also picked up cute Ts and leggings from their holiday collection (they say Snuggle Bunny on it...so apt for Sweet Baby A). We then headed home, had some lunch and sent A off to nap. While A was napping, E and I baked some cookies. (Okay, they were the premade dough, but we did top them with sprinkles by ourselves!)

Since our afternoon outing to ride bikes and trikes was cut short because of the cold, I relented to E's wishes to go out for dinner...and she picked McDonald's. Now, usually I would steer her towards another choice, but I figured that the Playplace would be good for her so off we went. E had a blast...she made a friend within 2 minutes of getting there and spent most of the time frolicking with her and running back to the table to scarf down a nugget, fry or apple slice. A was content to have me feed her burger (she would hand it to me and open her mouth rather than try to eat it herself) and LOVED it when E would wave to her from the play structure. She would squeal and wave frantically. The girls came home full, happy and exhausted.

Sunday was pretty low key. John came home pretty early and we had a family lunch, E and I ran some errands while A napped, and I did heaps and heaps of laundry. In the evening, we broke out the Elf on the Shelf, courtesy of Grandmom. I had never heard of this thing, but apparently it's the "it" thing this year...most of my mom friends up here have one. I heard such cute stories of what the kids named their elf (E's friend, Madelyn, named hers Foofa) and was expecting E to come up with something good or at least amusing (like Dora or Diego). She named her elf...Christopher. But, she did straighten up a few times when we reminded her that Christopher was going to visit Santa so it's all good.

All in all, it was a good weekend. No Christmas shopping or decorating...but oh well. There's always next week!

it's a wonder i wasn't impeached

As of today, I am no longer the Membership VP of my local MOMS Chapter. I actually resigned in early November, but between Thanksgiving and the illnesses that have been bouncing around the Slacker house, I just got around to passing over the membership box. Although I'm kind of sad to let it go (the Board meetings were fun and I liked meeting the new members), it had certainly fallen to the bottom of the priority list...and I was, quite frankly, sucking at it before I resigned. I think the mom who took it over will do a good job.

I'll do a big weekend recap of my weekend tomorrow morning...I'm off to put away my laundry. Every week I think to myself that I should shoot for a load a day, and that way it won't be so overwhelming. But, you know what? Doing a load of laundry every night after getting up, going to work, sitting in traffic, picking the girls up from school, getting dinner on the table and cleaned up, making lunches, and getting the girls to bed doesn't really sound like a walk in the park either.

My dryer sounds like we are drying a couple of dumbells in there along with the towels. Since our washer and dryer were from the previous owners, they were crappy (we replaced everything in the kitchen except the dishwasher when we moved in) so I have pipedreams of getting new, fancy versions at some point. I was perusing the Sears Wish Book and they had a dryer that cleaned 23 towels at a time. Now I don't think I own 23 towels...but I just realized that maybe I could dump the colors in one load, whites in another and sheets and towels in a third and be done with it?!?!?!?

I so know what I'm asking Santa for this year!

thank god for collage christmas cards

This morning, the girls were looking cute (and somewhat festive) in their matching outfits, so I decided to try to take a picture of them for consideration for the Slacker family Christmas card. How did it go? Not well. The pictures contained A in various states of trying to get off the couch with E alternately trying to yank her back onto the couch or sitting there looking cute as a button. I plan on trying to take some pictures this weekend in their Christmas dresses, but I think the idea of having a picture of the two of them looking cute together is just a pipedream.

So, thank you Snapfish, Shutterfly, and Ofoto (or EasyShare or KodakGallery or whatever your name du jour is) for providing me with the option of showing friends and family how cute my kids are in two separate pictures on the same card!

party girl

Last night after school, E ran upstairs and "changed into something more comfortable" as she is one to do pretty much every day. Last night's outfit actually matched (a rare occasion for her)...it was a t-shirt and matching peasant skirt outfit that her Grandmom had given her. While the t-shirt fits perfectly, the skirt is still a bit big on her, so she kind of looks like Stevie Nicks in it when she wears it (which is often).

Anyhoooo, she comes downstairs and twirls around in her skirt.

"Guess what, mommy?" she says. "We're having a princess ballerina twirling party!"
"Wow, E!" I tell her. "That sounds like fun!"
"Whatchya doing, mommy?" she then asks.
"I'm making dinner. We're having quesadillas with guacomole."
"Even better!" E yells. "We'll have a princess ballerina quesadilla guacamole twirling party instead!"

I've been to my fair share of parties in my life ... but never one like that!

guess she has a sweet tooth

I picked up a couple of E's "art" project from school today and was thumbing through them. Of course, she had the requisite handprint-as-turkey craft that every preschool kid must complete in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. On the top of the paper, the teacher had written "I'm thankful for ... " and then filled in the blank with what E had said.

So what was E thankful for, you ask. Her family? Friends? Cute clothes? Dora and Diego? Nope. E was thankful for candy.

break out the guinness!

The Slackers and the O'Reillys are headed to Ireland in the late Spring 2008. This trip was originally scheduled for this spring as a celebration of our respective 5 year wedding anniversaries, but since Autumn was pregnant, we decided to hold off for another year so that I could have a drinking buddy we could all fully enjoy the trip.

As with all trips we take, John has made all the arrangements on our behalf. Therefore I don't know any details on where we fly into (Cork? Dublin? Shannon?), where we are staying or how we are getting around...so don't even ask. What I do know is that we are flying Aer Lingus...and I giggle everytime I say it.

sweet baby a (and her big ole belly!)

I couldn't have a picture of E without including one of A...so here's it is! Thanks to Nonna, who got the girls the polka dot t-shirts (on A) and dresses (on E in the post below).

I love me some polka dots. I love me some matching outfits for the girls. Not one, but two matching polka dot outfits for the girls? Pure heaven!