SUPERSTAR

We have a superstar in the house. Peyton is the superstar for her class this week. We had to make a poster to take to put up in the classroom. I struggled with trying to figure out how much I should do and how much she should do. I think we came up with a happy medium. She wrote her name and I typed out all of the information she wanted and put pictures on them so that when she presented her poster she wouldn't need anyone to read it for her. She cut out her squares and then we glued them to the colored paper and then to the posterboard. She is very proud of it. Nothing on the poster surprised us except that when she grows up she wants to be a nurse and a weather girl. Huh?

Every Tuesday night Brian, Haley and I go to Weight Watchers and Marcus watches all four girls. I stop by and pick up kid's meals somewhere for the kids. Last night we went to Jack in the Box and they put the meals in buckets. We are so excited. Every school day, Landree gets upset that Peyton has a bucket and she doesn't. Problem solved, she had a bucket to take to school today.

Now surely no one expected Landree to only carry it.

We have our Halloween costumes ready. When we are at Disney World we will be going to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. Peyton is going to be Violet from the Incredibles and Brian and I are going to wear Incredible T-shirts. For actual Halloween Landree will be Baby JackJack from the Incredibles but we are calling her Baby LouLou. We tried the costume on her and she loved it. She then decided to help me make the pizzas for dinner. As you can see she has discovered all the great uses for stools in the house.

Dr. Nana and Nurse Peyton

I know it has been a week since I have updated my blog. It was a busy week. Brian has worked 16-18 hour days this week and even had to go in after church today. The girls went to the dentist and I was really impressed with her. Only in Texas would you go to the dentist and sit on a saddle to have your blood pressure taken. Moma has a meeting in Austin tomorrow so she has spent the weekend with us. We had 3 couples over last night for an LSU-Florida watch party. Brian had the family room decorated with everything in the house that had LSU on it. One of the couples graduated from Florida so needless to say it was a nail-biter.


While I was mopping the floor on Friday, I stepped on something. I looked and couldn't find anything so I went back to mopping and forgot about it. This morning my foot started hurting. By lunch time it was really hurting so I asked Moma to take a look. After digging around, she couldn't find anything but she did have a great helper.

Peyton was worried that Nana was going to hurt me and she would hold the light and then close her eyes and look away. Her nosiness would get the best of her and she would have to look again. I am walking around on the outside of my foot and if it is not better tomorrow I guess I will have to go to the doctor because 2 weeks from today we will be in Disney World and I am not having a bad foot at Disney World.

NEWS ALERT- Landree finally said please, well it was fee- close enough and I'll take it.

I got a wild hair to make Peyton some Disney clothes and didn't know how I was going to get it done. It was perfect then that Nana was coming. Here is a shirt we made, I cut and wonder undered everything to the shirt and she sewed them.

Nana's Birthday is on Tuesday so we surprised her with a cake. The Happy Birthday letters are candles (didn't think to take a picture before we lit them) and Peyton wrote Nana.


Tomorrow, Kacy and Abby are coming to spend the day with us and Peyton is so excited. I hope that will help her when Nana leaves. Last time she was distraught when Nana left.

Weekend

We were supposed to have a nice quiet weekend at home this week. Our friends were going out of town so we offered to watch their dogs. Sophie came over Thursday night, no problems. Landree loves her and calls her Fifi. On Friday, we got Tucker the 8 week old Lab puppy. I have now renamed him Tucker the Terrible. This dog beats all I have ever seen. He was here almost 6 hours before he fell asleep. What 8 week puppy stays up this much. He pees like nobodys business. He was confined to the kitchen for an hour and peed three times and pooed once. Are you serious! Well it was going to be okay because between Brian and I we should be able to handle it.

Then Brian got a call to go dove hunting Saturday morning with Jim. Okay, so now I have 2 kids and 3 dogs by myself Saturday morning. I cheated and gave the girls bags of Cheerios and cups of milk for breakfast and let them watch TV. That was all fine and good until Tucker stole Landree's bag of Cheerios- twice. Here are the little darlings cleaning it up. I then put Tucker in the kitchen and put up the baby gate. Next thing you know, I hear Landree screaming. She stuck her hand through the baby gate and couldn't get it out and Tucker was chewing on it with those sharp little baby teeth. Crisis was solved and everyone was happy until Tucker got her baby doll. The girls do like loving on him when he cooperates.

Brian finally got home a little after 11:30 and we all ate lunch. Work then called at 2:30 and he stayed on the phone until about 5:30 when he came down and said he was off the call and I thought wonderful, it's your turn to manage the zoo. Next thing he says, "I have to go in to work." Well great! He didn't get home until 3:30 this morning so of course now he has to sleep late so I get the zoo again. This time I put everybody at the table for breakfast so Tucker can't get it. Well now he likes chewing on Peyton and Landree's feet. I throw him outside and I'm sure my neighbors loved listening to him howl like a banshee. Buddy is so stinkin' tired he is sometimes going upstairs and getting in his kennel. Brian was afraid the girls would want a puppy after all of this- over my cold dead body.

Here are the three angels:

Peyton's Field Trip

Don't know why this didn't post on Friday. It was in my list of drafts but never posted for some reason.


Today Peyton had her first field trip of the year. A city bus is coming to school and Peyton's class is going to get on the bus, watch a video, and then take a drive around the neighborhood. Parents and siblings were welcome. Peyton quickly informed me she didn't want me to go. She told me she was a big girl and that she didn't need me. I told her that Landree might want to ride and Peyton said that was fine, she could sit next to her and hold her hand. I told her that Landree couldn't ride without me and she told me that she guessed Landree wasn't riding. I decided to let her have control today, it really isn't that big of a field trip. However, she was informed that I would be going on the rest of her field trips and she agreed. If this is four, what will fourteen be like. Needless to say she had a great time and was a little upset that they didn't wear seatbelts

We pulled out the aquadoodle today and the girls loved it but there was a space issue. Landree only wanted to draw on the same space Peyton was drawing on or had already drawn on. Peyton informed me that I needed to put an aquadoodle on Landree's christmas list because she needed her own. This is probably the only time that played well together on it.

Landree's First ER Trip

We had a really great weekend. My mom came in on Friday night and we let Peyton stay up to see her. We were all happy when Landree remembered Nana and called her by name Saturday morning. We did some shopping on Saturday and Brian fixed ribs. Sunday, Mom and I went shopping and I decided I don't need to go to Nordstroms again once I saw a little black dress for $1145.00. We went to a meeting at the Church we are thinking about joining and the girls stayed with Nana. Mom and Peyton made Baked Alaska. I know, she's only 4 but they saw it on Paula's Party and Nana thought she would love it. She was right and she did but then she said she didn't like the coverup they put on it (meringue). Mom and I talked about how different Peyton and Landree were and that we saw Landree having lots of accidents in her future. Well we shouldn't have said it.

This morning Landree wanted on our bed and Peyton decided to help her up. I was in the bathroom and heard a huge bonk and did what all parents do, pause and wait for the sound and it came, the scream. Before I could get to her I hear Peyton say, I'm so sorry Mama, there's blood on her face. Landree had a cut on her eyebrow and had blood streaming down her face. I tried to clean her up but couldn't get the blood to stop. I tried to take a picture with my camera phone to get Dr. Aunt Melanie's opinion. I even measured it with a ruler. The pediatrician's office recommended she come in but then didn't have any openings and told me to go to the ER. So I called Peyton's school and they told me that I could bring her early for lunch bunch. I got everyone dressed and into the car, ran by McDonalds, got Peyton to school and made it to the ER. I was surprised when we got there and they had a separate ER waiting room and section for children. We got back after about 15 minutes. The nurse cleaned her up and the doctor came in and decided that glue would work best since we would have to sedate her for stitches. They irrigated it with betadine and saline- she wasn't impressed at all. The nurse put fingers on either side and stretched it until it was closed and the doctor put the glue on it and held it for 45 seconds and we were done. They had us wait five minutes and then said we could go. I put Landree down so I could get our things and she headed straight for the door and didn't want me to pick her up. She grabbed her bunny and away we went. She held her bunny with one hand and my hand with the other and we walked all the way to the parking garage. What a big girl. We were in and out of there in 1 hour 15 minutes. I was shocked how quickly it went and was really impressed with the setup they had. It was definately a better experience than when Peyton had stitches at about the same age. Landree acts like it doesn't bother her much and played this evening. When she sucks her thumb, she uses the other fingers to pick at it some. Here are some pictures of her. Bless her heart, Peyton keeps telling me how sorry she is.

Gymnastics

Well the much awaited second gymnastics class was today. Peyton told me she was a little bit nervous and she wanted to take Coach Vlady something. We agreed on an apple and she was ready when I picked her up from school. She ran in the gym and Coach Vlady immediately said, "Hi, Peyton." I thought oh crap he remembers her. She gave him the apple and he made a huge deal about it. I walked up to the observation deck and got Landree and I settled. And people, you would never known there was a problem. She did everything she was supposed to do. Oh thank goodness. I was able to sit with the other moms and chat and it was wonderful. She came out of that gym in a sweat. By the way, that gym smells like a big ol' dirty dog ooohhweeeh it stinks. So we have had a successful day!

Brian

Well, Brian had his long awaited appointment for his sleep study yesterday. He ended up leaving the office with a machine before he ever did the sleep study. You know when you look in someone's throat you can normally see that little hangy thing in the back (uvula something like that)? Well you can't see Brians because his airway is so small. So the doctor said he didn't even need the sleep study results, he knew that Brian needed one now. So we'll see which is easier for me, being lulled to sleep by snoring or the hum of a machine. He even has a chin strap for it. For the right incentive, I could even be persuaded to take a picture.

The three of us went to Weight Watchers last night. Instead of AA, fat people have to go to WW, maybe we'll get someone to take our picture on the way out so we can be like celebrities being chased down by the papparazzi. So far we've all lost, of course Brian being the most. We tried a different leader last night. Oh my goodness, that had to have been the loudest woman I have ever met in my life. I think Haley developed a tick. We did like her after we got a little acclimated and she meets the requirements of being a former fat ass but Haley and I decided we would need valium before we went in every week. I'm sure her people loose weight or you would be too scared to go back in there.

So Brian had to wake up on his birthday at the sleep clinic. Peyton was ticked. She threw open my door this morning and immediately was upset over her daddy not being there because she wanted to wish him Happy Birthday. I couldn't believe she woke up remembering. We went to lunch with Brian and people from work. Jeff set it up at Rudys BBQ known for having the worst BBQ in Texas- I'm not kidding thats their motto. It was good but still not BareBones and the girls had a great time getting lots of attention. We gave him his present of pictures of the girls. Last week, I took the girls and got their pictures taken- that is 2 1/2 hours I will never get back. No more picture surprises because that is a two-person job. Peyton and I baked him cupcakes this afternoon with Scooby Doo heads on them (Peyton picked of course). News Bulletin- Landree can have Duncan Hines Devils Food Cake mixed with a diet soda and their frosting- Whoohooo! It's Brian's birthday but I know my audience and I'm pretty sure they would want to see pictures of one of the girls. So here is Landree eating her first chocolate cupcake.

As you can tell she needed a bath after the cupcake.

For those of you that have been following the saga- hopefully I will have good news after gymnastics tomorrow afternoon. Please pray for Peyton to have the strength to get over her stubbornness and for me not to beat her if she doesn't.