Been Awhile

Life has been busy. Amelia is turning two on Friday. Last week was Thanksgiving with a little black Friday shopping, Amelia's 2-year pics right after that, my sister and brother and their spouses were in town so it was off to my parents house after that. Saturday we celebrated Thanksgiving at my parents until 5:30 because that is when we had to be at the pizza place to set up for Amelia's birthday party. A lot of people were unable to make it because of Thanksgiving plans or illness but we still had a great time.

The theme of the party was, you guessed it, Elmo. I also added Abby to the mix so it wasn't SO much Elmo.

Amelia was crabby most of the day. We dealt with a lot of meltdowns. I checked her mouth this morning and sure enough, she has another I-tooth poking through. Aside from the crabbiness, she got lots of wonderful gifts but most importantly, they were from wonderful people whom I love dearly. We couldn't have asked for anything better. Except next time I will know that they don't actually come to the party room to take my order so I have to go to the front counter to place my order. Luckily the order included lots of beer so I was forgiven for the 45 minute wait on the pizza.

A few pics:

Even though her Auntie made her a special cake, she insisted on eating the Elmo Cake:

One of her happier (and goofier) moments:

You would never guess she was really crabby that day when looking at the pictures.

This is the cake I made. For some reason I have a need to make Amelia's cakes no matter how stressed they make me. It took me 2 1/2 jar of no-taste red to make Elmo (I made way too much frosting), and it took me 1/2 jar of powder black and 1/2 jar of Wilton black food coloring for the mouth. Not to mention the 3 trips home and one trip to Walmart because I kept forgetting stuff (I decorated it during Thanksgiving at my parents but prepped everything there the night before).

Mommy Guilt

First off, on Saturday I decided Amelia's hair in the back was way too frizzy from sleeping. It kept tangling and let's face it, I was sick of feeling the frizz any time I would touch it. So I cut it off. I have seen my stylist cut my hair many times, how hard could it be. Famous last words. Really it was just a small area and it turned out fine but I started with a little on Saturday, then chickened out but finished on Sunday. She has the most beautiful little curls at the base of her neck and there is no way I am cutting those off. She would not stop moving! I need to get over the "do everything myself" mentality. But I feel guilty, like I am missing out on something.

On to the next guilt trip I am laying on myself (because isn't there always at least two).

About two weeks ago Amelia's daycare lady asked her if she had owies and where they were. Amelia pointed in the area of her jaw/neck. I figured she was getting teeth. That night and over the course of the next five days, she would get a slight increase in her temp, anywhere from 99 degrees to 101.2. But they didn't last and she didn't act real sick, just really crabby, so I didn't think anything of it. She stopped getting temps. On Sunday, I started getting a sore throat, by Sunday night I had body aches. My temperature has been hardly elevated. The highest it got was 100 point something. But it comes and goes, sometimes the sore throat is a dull ache, sometimes it feels like I got my tonsils out again. So today I went to the doctor because it is hard to take care of a two year old. I didn't have a fever but I did have BAD body aches and sore throat. He came to the conclusion that I most likely had strep. I have never had strep in my life and let me say, I never want it again.

I felt terrible. the parents of one of the kids at daycare both had strep and my daycare lady mentioned it when she told me about Amelia pointing to her "owies". I figured she would have a higher fever and fuss more. Her doctor was out today so I made an appointment for right away tomorrow morning. I don't know if they will even test her but I feel like such an ass. I feel like I completely ignored my daughter's symptoms, even if they were small. But on the other hand, the night before I hosted my first Thanksgiving, I had to take her to the emergency room out of fear she had pneumonia (just croup...OF COURSE. I shake my fist at you, croup.) but at least I knew. I didn't get home until almost 2:00 and didn't make it to bed until 2:30. So, the lesson I learned, not all fevers are created equal.

If anyone reads this, this is the part where you tell me that it happens to everyone, I am not a bad mom and all that other good-feeling stuff. Thanks!

You Capture-Halloween & Silence

Since I have so many Halloween pics I am going to do Silence first. This was Monday after Halloween. My baby was sick and she just fell asleep on the couch. She took an almost 2 hour long nap.

We had a good Halloween. We made it three whole places this year. We left around 7:00 and got home around 10:00. Good thing it was only three because I totally forgot the cute little Elmo candy bucket :( Thankfully my mom had taken a paper bag with handles and glued a halloween printout on it so it doubled as her candy bucket. Considering it was pretty full when we got it and we put her other grandma's stuff AND my aunt and uncle's loot into it, I am surprised it survived. One tough bag. These are my Halloween pics:

This is the pumpkin Mark carved:


These are the pumpkins I carved:


This is our candy...we got 6 trick-or-treaters before we left so we still have 95% of it:


This is the cake I made for work:

Mark and Elmo

Me and Elmo

That's it. To see more hop on over to Beth's.