Rough Day at the Crandalls!

Why is it that things are always chaotic and stressful on the days I need it to not be chaotic and stressful?

This morning I awoke to the wonderful smell of poo. Ainsley had pooped in her diaper and was covered in it from the waist down. Mercifully, the poo was contained inside the pajamas. So, I had to put her in the bathtub, strip her down, clean her off, wash out her clothes, scrub the bathtub and then bathe her. I had to use Thomas' Old Spice Extra Tough Body Wash... that's not good for the eczema!

Then, Ainsley finally went down for a nap and remember how I said that Hannah wasn't sick... well, she's sick now. And whiny. So I banished her to my room so that I could study. I heard the tv come on in my room and it was LOUD and it was STATIC. I didn't want it to wake up Ainsley so I jumped up, pushed open my bedroom door and smacked Hannah in the face with the doorknob. Busted her bottom lip open. Just a tiny bit. But she's really mad at me. She's fine. She is watching a movie and playing computer games. And yes, her yelling at me that I am the meanest mom ever DID wake Ainsley up. So, no study time for Mommy and I now have TWO whiny little munchkins! :) I have a feeling this midterm is not going to go so well...

Sickies and more sickies!

We had a week or so at the beginning of January when the girls were sick, but Thomas and I were fine. That was really the only time that they have been SICK all winter. Well, the sickies struck our house again this weekend. Thankfully it is just a cold, but it's a nasty one! I wish that either the medicine would work or my head would just go ahead and explode... But anyway... we are all still alive and doing okay, just have yucky colds. For some reason, poor little Hannah is the only healthy one. She is bored out of her mind with the rest of us being sick. Thankfully we checked out some movies at Blockbuster on Friday afternoon. I have seen Barbie's Mermaidia movie at least twenty times in the last 4 days. But Ainsley likes it, too, so I am NOT complaining! So, I win the award for worst Mom in the world last night! We are trying to get Ainsley to sleep through the night, so if she wakes up we let her cry herself back to sleep. She is almost two years old, it's about time. And she has done really well the last few nights. Well, last night around 11:30 she started crying and calling my name. Nothing unusual there. She stopped fussing after about five minutes. A few minutes before midnight I went to check on her and she was asleep but her bedroom STUNK! I walked CAREFULLY across the room ('cause you never know where the "mess" is with her) to the light switch and flipped it on. She had been sick in her bed and had been trying to get my attention. Then she climbed back in her bed and rolled in it and fell asleep. Lovely. So, I went and got a bath ready, woke her up and cleaned her up and washed her sheets and blankets and bed cover and pillow. I was hoping that it wasn't a stomach virus. She has been fine since, so I am thinking that it must have been the FOUR Oreos that Hannah snuck her right before bedtime along with all the cold nastiness.

I sincerely apologize to all of you who have been the recipients of strange phone calls from my house. Ainsley is a monkey and has figured out a way to get my phone down from every conceivable hiding place. So far she has placed numerous calls to my parents, and most recently to Grandma Shelly & Aunt Angie. And some other phone number I have never seen before... So, if you get a phone call from me and there is nothing but someone breathing into the phone, it's Ainsley. Just say hi to her and tell her to give the phone to Mommy. Although, she'll probably tell you no and run and hide.

I have been keeping super busy lately. I don't feel like I ever get anything accomplished, but I never have time to simply sit still and just relax. I have been working on balance and setting a schedule and goals for myself. Then we all got sick and they have all been tossed by the wayside. I am looking forward to feeling better and having a clean house and an organized work schedule again. My friend, Ashli, and I have been working on some ideas for funky scrapbook kits. We are hoping to have the first one out in a couple of weeks!


So, I have a cute Hannah story that goes with the funny little picture above! On Friday, I wasn't feeling great, so I put Ainsley down for her nap and told Hannah that I needed some Mommy-Time and we were going to have quiet time for a bit. She could either play computer games on Daddy's computer or work on crafts in the kitchen. She chose crafts. After about half an hour of glorious peace and quiet, Hannah came running out of the kitchen with her arms behind her back. She flung her arms around thrust a HUGE bouquet of foam flowers at me. It was sooooo sweet! She yelled "Ta-Dah! Now you can feel better, Mommy!" My sweet little girl climbed on my lap and gave me a big hug. Hannah is such a sweet and compassionate little girl. When Ainsley is sad, Hannah is sad. When I don't feel well, she worries about me. She is such an old soul, a lot like I was. I took a picture of her holding the flowers and the camera took forever, hence the crazy look on her face. She had her teeth clenched into a smile and asked, "Is that camera ever gonna take my picture?" Funny little girl! And then Ainsley woke up and Quiet Time was over...

So, we have had some fun things going on... I took Hannah out for some Grown-Up Girl Bonding Time (Enchanted is one of her favorite movies!) and we just ran errands and went to the school board building to start the process of registering her for kindergarten. We are really hoping not to live in our neighborhood next fall when she starts school, but just in case, we want to make sure that she does NOT go to our neighborhood school. It's awful. So, we went to the school board building and signed up for a spot at another school. While we were there Hannah was talking about the patterns on the floor tiles and making up games to play with the floor tiles. I always thought that all kids thought like that, in patterns and colors. Well, the lady we were talking to used to work in the Gifted testing area. She suggested that we take her upstairs to that department and sign her up to be tested for the Gifted and Talented program. While we were up there, Hannah started talking about all of the colors on the bulletin board, but she was saying them in Spanish. The lady there asked if Hannah comes from a bilingual home. I told her that we watch Dora, but that's as bilingual as we get. She asked if we would be interested in having Hannah in a Gifted Language Immersion program. We are going to have her tested in the spring for Gifted programs and then decide what to do after we get the results. I think Hannah would love the Immersion program. She loves learning new ways to say the same thing. She loves learning new adjectives as well as ways to say the same thing in different languages. They do sign language on the Sprout network and she looks forward to learning the sign language more than watching the shows. It's adorable! Now she is making up her own sign language. It's so cute! But a little frustrating when I ask her a question and can't figure out if she is answering me in real sign language or her own made-up kind!

Ainsley is starting to put two words together now and learns new words and word combinations every day. She loves to sing songs and she has an amazing memory. I think she may have a photographic memory for sounds, like Thomas does. When a commercial comes on TV, she stops and says it along with the commercial if it is one she has ever watched before. Everyday when I give the girls a bath, we count to twenty so that Hannah can learn to count. The other day Hannah and I got to eight and I heard Ainsley chiming in... nine, ten, 'leven, twelve, 'teen, 'teen, fifteen... It was adorable! She has no concept of numbers of course, but she remembers them.

My camera is on its last leg (it's at least ten years old!), so I haven't taken many photos at all lately. We are hoping to get a new camera with our tax return. I want to get a dSLR, but we'll see what else we need our tax return for before I plan on that one! We told Hannah we would try to get a Wii, too. She LOVES playing bowling on the Wii. And she's good at it.

I think that is everything! I have a new kit in my store at Elemental Scraps and a new freebie on my design blog. I have to go do some design work and figure out payouts and get my tax stuff ready... Have a great day!

I got tagged!

Angie tagged me to post my fourth picture in my fourth picture folder. I have all mine chronologically on this computer. This picture is from 2003. My sister-in-law sent us this picture of her kids when we lived in Florida. We love these adorable kiddos!

Charity Kit & a print coupon

Check my design blog for more information about my new charity collab kit, Here Comes Trouble.


Also, I have a coupon on my design blog for Scrapping Simply. Don't miss this sale!