Thanks, Uncle Ry Ry (126/365)

These are from the end of last month. One night before bed, Alice went to their room and grabbed the two special bears from Uncle Ry Ry and they proceeded to be oh-so-cute with them (and with each other). They both carted them off to bed with them as well! Thought you'd like to know.

Izzy is on her way to the doctor tomorrow. She's still sick, still getting fevers, still not herself so we decided it was time to take her in. Will keep you all posted.

My Little Girls Miss You (125/365)

So does your little girl, you should have visited longer.
Or maybe just pick up the phone every now and again. ;p
Miss you, Old Man.

No Zoo (124/365)

But we had fun at home anyway. Izzy woke up (at 9:30am) with a temp of
101.3 so we decided not to go and see the animals in cages. Instead,
we opted to see the animals in our own backyard. Matt was already off
work, so he and Alice got to do lots of playing while I took care of
the Little Miss. When asked what her favorite part of the day was,
she responded: "when we had the race with the sidewalk chalk."

Whatever that means. I think despite not getting to see the sheep and
zebras one can definitely say that she had a good day.

Seven on Sunda...er...(123/365)

- We should have had Texas Hash tonight, for Uncle James would have
been able to pass the torch on to his goddaughter. This was the first
night we had to make Alice sit at the table until her food was gone
and I have to say it worked much better than sending her to bed
without eating.

- I guess you could call Izzy a walker now. She still prefers to crawl
everywhere, but she is much more brave than she was even a few weeks
ago. She's practically running with her push toy, and her record is
about 10 consecutive steps without giving up.

- We're hoping to get to the zoo tomorrow. There is a new bear exhibit
that we want to see (and can see because we're members as it's not
officially open yet) that looks SO neat. I've got my fingers crossed
that Izzy wakes up feeling better as she went to bed quite cranky and
with a temp of almost 100*F.

- I've decided, the next time we take a long vacation it needs to be
out west. It's been ages since we've been that way and I think it's
time we went back. I haven't mentioned this to Matt yet though. Just
something I thought of when talking with Andi this weekend.

- I have an update on the cat brush I bought about a month ago. I'm
happy to report that Charlie hasn't had a hairball since before we got
the brush (and if you recall, he had been an at least once a week kind
of cat)! I also only have to brush him once a week now as his coat is
all thinned out. No more softball sized lump of hair to throw away
anymore, yay! Now if I could only get Roxy to sit nice long enough to
defur her. She doesn't have haiball issues, but she's getting hair on
everything!

- As of today the weightloss challenge we started in January is over!
We should find out by Wednesday who won. My bet is on Matt, who lost
45.5 lbs! I can't be upset about my loss of 23 lbs, but I SO could
have done better if I had been more committed.

- I cannot get the theme song to the 80s cartoon, The Littles out of
my head. It's on Netflix streaming and Alice is OBSESSED with the show
and movie. If we're watching TV, chances are we're watching The
Littles. Sorry, Mike, it's actually kind of growing on me.

Showering the Bride to Be (122/365)

Kath,
Thanks for letting my crabby kid who was looking for something to do
help you open your shower gifts. I know she enjoyed it far more than
you realize. We had a great day and hope you did too!

PS - don't forget to send pics when you use the slap-chop!

Lots of Randomness (121/365)

Bear with me, I can't add the captions with the pictures from my phone.

1) Tomorrow is Kathy's bridal shower and so we decided to get together
with some of the out of town family that came in (and other locals
that we don't see often) for dinner tonight. No gathering of the
Bathje/Muchow crowd is small. We had a whole section all to ourselves.
And as far as I can tell, good food was had by all. I'd certainly go
back to Gulliver's again!

2) Izzy was seriously thinking about drinking Brett's beer. I blame it
on the fact that Matt forgot to pack Izzy a bottle. That's ok, she
more than made up for it with the two containers of baby food, Alice's
leftover mac & cheese, chicken and bread from Matt's dinner, and some
milk and water that she drank from a straw! The kid had a belly like a drum by the
time she was done.

3) Alice's flower girl dress came in the mail this week. She was more
than happy to try it in for me, complete with the watermelon colored sash.
She's going to be the prettiest flower girl ever come July!

4) The other day Izzy had my phone and was listening to her favorite
song, Elephants. She's recently learned how to push the button to exit
an app, and she was getting very frustrated because apparently she didn't really want to do that. Alice decided to help
her, but Izzy must have hit the button twice, which turns on the
camera, because Alice snapped this gem of Izzy getting very upset with
her helpful sister!

I'm Still Weeding Through Pictures (120/365)

But here's a gem or two from Izzy's actual birthday when she was eating birthday cake. We had so much fun that day. (click to enlarge)

More Spring Beauties (119/365)

I am just now getting around to editing the pics I took the last time we went to go see Dad and Cindy. I'm working remotely from our Mac to our PC so it's not the fastest, so you'll have to take these two pics (and the new header) that I have done for now. I'll come back and edit the post with more pics when I get them done. Hey, I started this, so I make the rules and as far as I'm concerned this isn't cheating.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
(click to enlarge)

Hanging with Uncle Ry. Miss you.

Grandma Susie's tree.

Alice being a crazy girl and pretending to be a door-to-door salesman.

88 is Great, Grandma! (118/365)

The Kid Knows What She Likes (117/365)

All day long Izzy has been obsessed with walking with her walker up and down the hallway. Several times in fact she took 5+ steps without holding on to something to get to her walker! I thought I'd try and get that on video before she went to bed this evening, but unfortunately she was more interested in the computer than her walker. Here's the video that resulted.

I Wish You Sweet Dreams of Your Grandmother (116/365)

Today Alice informed me that she had a dream about Grandma Susie during her nap. She normally dreams about sheep, teddy, or recently, the bow to her flower-girl dress (the kid's excited, what can I say?) so this is really something different for her. I'm not sure what happened in the dream, but I, for one, hope she never stops having them.

I'm off to bed. Maybe I'll get lucky and dream about Mom too.

Five Things About This Photo (115/365)

1) Alice's new skirt from JJ and Tori reminds me of my favorite Barbie
from when I was a kid.

2) Yes, those are fish maracas. Thanks, Cath.

3) Alice was dancing to a terrible Hawaii Scooby Doo movie starring
Mario Lopez. She gets her taste in entertainment (if you can call it
that) from her Father.

4) Say hello to Izzy's butt down in the lower right corner.

5) Alice's outfit is a GIRLS size 4/5. Skirt is loose, shirt is ALMOST
too short. The girl is a freaking monster. There must be Miracle Grow
in the milk.

Can You Guess Which Came First? (114/365)

It's not what you'd think.

This kid was up so much last night that she fell asleep in her lunch
and we had to wait for her to wake so we could eat cake! We had a
FABULOUS day. The only thing that could have made it better is if all
of you could have been there.

By the way, do you even recognize Matt? He's looking pretty skinny
these days! We have about a week left of our challenge, and as of
last week Matt is in the lead.

Horrible Allergies + Preparing for the Party= (113/365)

I'm going to lay on the couch and wait for Charles and Erin to get
here, then go to bed. Sorry for the cheap post. I'm really spent.

See you at the party!!

It May Not Be Perfect (112/365)

But I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. This is what I spent
the majority of my day doing, and I can't wait to eat it!

And yes, that's chocolate buttercream. Mmmmmm...