The BEST mommy's helper

Caution, Warning, the following entry is all about how I have the BEST 3yr old in the world.  Proceede at your own risk.

Now, she is a very normal 3yr old, likes to dress up, play with her sister, feed and walk the dog, take out the trash, and help herself to lotion, the fridge and other things she should not be getting into.  She also has days that whine is the main dish she is serving --despite my best attempts to explain that while pregnant mommy is not suppose to be exposed to wine. ;)  Yesterday, she had an extraordinary day.

While Laurelei naps in the afternoon, that is the longest part of the day for CJ.  She anxiously waits for her to wake up and play.  Yesterday, as I headed into the computer room to check Eric's schedule, crossing my fingers it would be up early, I heard Laurelei letting us know she was awake.  CJ bounded up the stairs to greet her, and typically they sing songs, dance and entertain each other until I get there.  I hear CJ yell down,
"There's poop on the floor"
Great, one of those things listed in the mommy discription but at the bottom of fun things to do as a mommy.  Laurelei has recently discovered her poop, and we have had a couple of good messes.
"I'll be there in a moment, leave it alone" I yelled back.
Not excited to be cleaning poop, I finished checking his schedule and debated on which carpet cleaner might be needed.  I head upstairs and think, should I take the camera?  Dreading the mess I will find.  But I was distracted by the sound of running water.  A sinking feeling fell over me that I now had a bigger mess to clean. I turn up the stairs in time to see CJ heading to the room with a dripping wet wash cloth.
I walked in.  No offensive, overpowering smell invaded my nose, strange.  I look at Laurelei, her arms are covered with....?
I ask, " what is on her arms?"
"Foam soap, I was washing her up, the wash cloth is to clean it off."
Awww
CJ continued, "and here I scrubbed it off the crib."
And sure enough there was some soap on the crib....I looked around, "um, where is the poop?"
"In the toilet" CJ answered very matter factedly.
As I wiped up the soap, a very pleasant task to be dealt, vs. scrubbing fecal matter, I found out she used a wash cloth to move the poop to the toilet, and the orange bath foam soap was gone, which she threw the canister away.
I was stunned.  I was proud.  She really is a good little mommy helper and possibly the best 3yr old around.

On Sunday we picked up a list for a first grade little girl to purchase school supplies for.  CJ was very excited to go shopping for her and loved picking out the supplies.  Here she is packing the back pack that she picked out with the list of items.  She also tried to sneak candy, and toys along with anything else she thought the little girl might like.  Her altruistic inner beauty is something that I love watching in action.

I had a couple of pictures to share, but blogger isn't uploading them...maybe later.

So here, Hurricane Dolly dumped rain on us on Wed and through the night, but all day Thursday was dry, and VERY windy.  No more videos.  And yes I know I 'm not going to win mother of the year, but I did at least get pictures of the kids and the storm and memory making is within my job discription.

Friday, CJ hosted a "tea party"  we had the little girls from the neighborhood over, and having a 3r old girl (or very close to 3) is a "requirement" for our neighborhood.  It was still very windy, but everyone had fun dressing up, eating banana bread that CJ and Daddy made, and drinking juice.  Laurelei slept through most of it but was thrilled to wake up, get dressed up and join the party.

Girls weren't the only ones at the tea party, nor the only ones dressing up.

Last Saturday, while Eric was flying, the girls and I went to Mama Mia.  It said it was a great mother daughter movie and that everyone would be dancing in the aisles so we ventured out.  Now if my mommy brain had been working I would have remembered, we don't go to church early or other sitting still events, so why oh why would I think we should sit through the previews???  The girls really did great, and I really enjoyed our time, including CJ telling me not to sing --so fun to embarrass her already, and the girls dancing "the pony" as CJ calls it during Dancing Queen.  We did leave early, too short of a nap for Laurelei got the best of us, but it was fun --we left with 20mins left, the amount of time the previews took.  Now all week CJ has been asking to sing "the honey" song from the movie along with Mama Mia...today I finally downloaded a few of the ABBA songs so we are busy having our own dance party.

Eric resumes flying on Monday, and will hopefully get his checkride on Tuesday.

Day one of Dolly

One might think that when you are under a hurricane warning, a tornado watch, and a flood watch, one might stay home and watch movies until the electricity goes out. I guess some people do that. Some have hurricane parties. Not us. This morning we braved the weather for doctor appts. for the girls, Laurelei has made it to 22lbs and 32 inches, CJ is holding steady at 39lbs and 42 inches. We then braved the weather for gymnastics, not sure when we'll get out to do things. At that point, Dolly had not yet officially made landfall.

Basically starting around 2:30 this morning, it has been raining off and on. Often a really good drenching rain, other times similar to a waterfall --oh wait--hurricane force buckets of rain with wind. But we have not been stuck inside! Check these out!

This was the gulf, from our backyard at about 10:30 this morning.

Here is a waterlogged flower in our backyard, beauty during a storm.

You may go outside during a hurricane as long as you have proper attire on, a rain coat if raining,

princess shoes if windy.

The gulf at about 3:30 this afternoon.

My camera has a pretty good zoom on it, so I did stand on our back porch for these pictures, I'm sure more impressive if I went over there, but are you crazy? There's a hurricane going on!

A short, and I mean very short, video of what "a small child advisory" means.

oh to be 3

Eric took CJ to the park today.  Once they got to the park, he couldn't get CJ out of the van.

"No, I'm embarrassed, I don't want to play with my friends"

"Why are you embarrassed?"

"Because we DROVE to the park, we live so CLOSE!"

Eric was "on call" and that was his reasoning for driving.  We do typically walk to the park at the end of the street.  Most of her friends do not walk, we have invited them to join us, and they will meet us at the park, but they don't walk with us.  I laughed.  Eric gives us a hard time about walking all around base, but things are close and it is a wonderful outing, I love that my kids are growing up not jumping in the car each time they want to go somewhere.

Staying In

That's right, we're going to stay put and watch the edge of the hurricane come on through.  We did pack up and put away everything from the back yard, and I think both Panther and CJ thought it might mean we were moving...not yet, soon enough.  They did move the planes out to New Mexico.

We said a final good bye to some friends today, as they headed to AZ.  CJ was upset that we didn't have tickets and couldn't go into the airport as well.  They have had even more of a whirl wind 2yrs than we have, so hopefully AZ is a good fit and one that lasts a while.

We have begun putting the girls to bed at the same time.  I had been hesitant since they share a room.  I had visions of crib climbing, dress up fashion shows, and hours of "girl talk".  However, they both have done well.  I hear them for a few minutes, but it doesn't take them long to go to sleep and both are going to bed easier.  It also gives me an hour head start on my evening chores, and I am getting to bed early and that is much needed as well.

Tomorrow the girls have a doctor appointment, early in the AM so either just as Dolly makes landfall or just before it does.  CJ also has gymnastics, if the rain isn't too bad.  Otherwise, we'll be pulling out the games, play doh, and glitter to pass the storm on by.

Just normal everyday stuff

Nothing too exciting going on around here.  Gymnastics, swim lessons, the pool, keeping cool and of course arts and crafts.  Eric rocked his last night flight on Tuesday and followed that up with a perfect score on his exam on Wed.

My little fashion diva...loves her accessories and thought she needed some black marker lip stick to finish her look, goes well don't ya think?

Painting...oh what fun! Yes that would be a touch of orange lip paint.

CJ is all about mixing the colors to discover the new color.

Caught, being sweet with each other.  They really are best friends.

Waiting, with love and all the time in the world, for her sister.

funnies

Great Grandma to CJ "You go girl"

CJ, puzzled "Where should I go?"


Driving with Grandpa, from the back seat "It's not sunny today. It is cloudy and raining. That is okay, we need the rain."
Grandpa, too stunned for words to reply.

Weekend

I hope you all had a great and safe 4th of July.  We had company and had a good time and the rain held off for the fireworks!  It was "cooler" only mid to high 80's with cloud cover and a breeze.  We needed the rain and we still got to do fun stuff.  Pictures are the best.

Cuddles with Panther

Riding the 2 story carousel

ICE CREAM!!! The Krazy Kolors is actually vanilla but did turn teeth and tongue blue

Laurelei LOVES her ice cream!

The cousins

Great Grandma has the best lap!

Playing games with grandma

Decked out for the 4th!

Touching the sea urchins and crabs