Adeline puts herself to bed...

It's true. Kids never cease to amaze.

Look at where we found our sweet Adeline the other night: alseep on her bedroom floor.

We'd done our bedtime routine, but I needed something from downstairs, then McKinley needed to come along, so Adeline was looking at books in her room and the rest of us headed downstairs.

A mere 8-10 minutes later, we came back up to find her crashed out on her floor with her blanket.

wow.

could. not. believe. it.

so, of course, I ran for the camera. now, most of you know our multi-layered sleep story with high-needs child #1,

so this from #2 is completely mind-blowing!

Granted, Adeline has had "practice" sleeping in other places (daycare) from a much earlier age, and she was "born a sleeper" as I like to say, but still. Wowo!
And this was a normal day, normal bedtime, healthy (finally!).
And I was able to pick her up and put her in her bed with no problem.

And her sweet, relaxed hands.

I need to remember nights like these when the night doesn't go as smoothly as this.

Fingers crossed for "easy" sleep when we travel to Wisconsin, because here's the real killer:

Adeline doesn't like to sleep on vacation and McKinley sleeps all night long.

Go figure.

I'm excited to be heading to Wisconsin because we haven't been there in a long time and I'm anxious to see my Grandpa! He's gonna be so delighted by the kids!

Adeline has the stomach flu

The stomach flu has hit our house this week.

Adeline has been sick since Tuesday.

We think it's just a virus at this point. Little sweetie.

She and I had Tuesday and Wednesday together to just lay around (McKinley was in school as thankfully, he's not sick). It was so wonderful to be able to give her whatever she needed exactly when she needed it.

Mostly she just wanted to sleep on me, then occasionally I could lay her down for a bit.

She couldn't resist a cookie from Grandma Vickie's cookie jar when we stopped by there after school on Tuesday, but she wouldn't eat it, and when we got home, she fell asleep on the futon, still clutching the cookie.
The advice nurse at our pediatrician's office told me to give her 1 tsp. of peach juice (from a can on peaches) every 10-15 minutes for an hour then to switch to Pedialyte. That perked her up, but a few hours later she threw up again.

McKinley desperately wanted to be close to Adeline and comfort her, and I even more desperately wanted to keep him away. In the end, I let him sit next to her and sing to her. She calmed down and he felt helpful.

Now that it's Friday, and Adeline is still sick, and I haven't gotten a good night's sleep all week and Mac is full of energy, he is trying to "help", but we're all just a bit stir crazy and needing everyone to be healthy again. Thankfully, tomorrow is Saturday and I have lunch and a pedicure scheduled with some work friends. Nothing is keeping me from going!

Sweet picture of Addie at the easel in one of her few upright moments this week.

More coloring. Thankfully, he can entertain himself for a while doing this.

Need to get some more coloring books as we've about exhausted our supply!

That will be a good outing for McKinley and I this weekend.

Harris

I'm posting this "as is"... the order is messed up and I can't figure out how to fix it, but the content is there...

A little help from Adeline to whip up some Valentine's skirts...

I think I'm addicted to making skirts.

She was very interested in the sewing and quite content to sit on my lap and "help".

Our coloring boy, who just this month developed a neat tripod grasp and is coloring so carefully and intricately. Note the butterfly under his arm - he did that all on his own! It's amazing!

These very cool markers are Crayola Color Surge. Highly recommended.

On a completely unrelated note: Mac learned to skip tonight! He's been practicing and practicing, but it's only been a step hop on his coordinated left foot with nothing on the right. I'm content to leave it at that, as skipping is definitely not a four year old skill. However, Lucy can skip and can skip well and Mac really wants to skip with her. So tonight we were walking out of Mudpuddles, and he started "skipping". We were holding hands, so I started just lifting him up a little every time he stepped on his right foot. It was just the right amount of cueing he needed to skip for real! It wasn't pretty, but it was skipping! He was thrilled. We'll see if he can do it again tomorrow.

This is Adeline's good buddy Harris from down the street. We hang out with them a lot. Harris is three weeks younger than Addie, and they adore each other

(could we really be so lucky to have found a "Lucy" for Adeline??)

Anyway, I have been feeling guilty that as much as we hang out with them, that I have virtually no pictures of the two of them. Geez!!! Today, I took some pictures. Isn't he the cutest thing ever?

(I have been contemplating buying this amazing scrapbook kit called Project Life. Has everything needed to complete a page a week documenting life's little things, which really are what make our days full. Right up my alley - but can I keep up with it and will I love it or will it be just another thing on my ever-full "to do list"? Check it out at amazon.com and send me your opinions!)
Building with the Lego Quattro blocks. Well, Addie was building and Harris was knocking it over. That's little boys for you!!

I think the kitchen sink from the pink kitchen is the most used toy we have. That thing gets used for everything and every kid that comes over takes it out.
Either a useful design flaw, or a very smart toy company!

(One of the possible uses for Project Life is to take a picture a day, and jot a couple notes about the day... perhaps easy if I can keep up with it. So, I decided to try taking at least one picture a day. I've seen this on other blogs, and love it, even when I don't really know the people. I tend to take pictures of the kids and that's it. AND SO... when I got the pictures off the camera tonight, what did I have? Pictures of the kids. Yup. Nuthin' else. So, I will attempt to branch out and document our life in addition to the kiddos. But here's a few from today. )

Mac got a haircut today. Cute, eh?Addie showed us that she can stack blocks,

and was persistant at stacking the long skinny blocks on top of each other.

I was amazed!

Dancing to "rock and roll" - an excellent rainy Sunday morning activity

January pictures: ballerina rockstar birthday party
washing shells

playing Princess Chutes and Ladders

snow hole

tuck position

learning to ski

skiing!!!

washing his hair

bathtime with Lucy after playing in th rain!!! Spiky hair.

Mac picked out all the clothes he needed to take to daycare.

They do get wet and messy every day, and usually need a change of clothes, but for the most part, he's in his underwear.

Just a quick story before we dash off to Mac's best friend Lucy's Rockstar Ballerina birthday party:

Yesterday, Mac, Addie and I headed to the bathroom to wash our hands. This always involves some amount of water play, peeing, talking about the dog food, washing spilled water off the floor... you get the picture. Never a short trip despite my best efforts. So Adeline was happily playing in water in the sink and Mac had to go to the bathroom. He said to Addie "Adeline, boys shake. Do you want to watch me shake? I can shake it really good." Lovely! I worked hard not to crack up. Addie seemed indifferent and went about playing in the water.