Good Night, The Curtain Drops on the Striped Nursery Wall

There has been a little bit of construction going on over at the house. I won't share and photos of the girls' room (which is 95% complete) until I finish with Brother's room. I will share a few 'during' pictures of the nursery (Brother's room). Sadly, the striped wall did not fit with the motif that we have for Brother's room so Tuesday was the curtain call. It was a sad day as I rolled primer over the striped wall and the Critters names.

I will say that the color we chose for Brother's room (Nantucket Dune - SW) looks killer.

Here are a few 'during pics (remember to tip your forty for the striped wall):

The point of no return.

Last little corner.

The Critters names, painted by Mary.

The Critters names no more.

Chris

The Critter Sitter: As told with sidewalk chalk

Our Critter Sitter Amy took the kids out to the carport to play and this is what ensued:

A panoramic view.

The Critters, traced in chalk.

CarCar.

Reese.

Hadley.

Hadley apparently wanted a hot dog.

CarCar kept pointing out airplanes.

And if you know anything about Reese you know he loves American flags.

Chris

Fairies: Can they be angry?

Rian, the Critters, and I headed to a birthday party @ the pool @ Southwood (aka the Disneyland of pools). It was Savannah's 1st birthday and much to CarCar and Haddie's delight, it had an Abbey Cadabby theme (although I think they got her confused with Zoe). The Critters got their fill of juice, food, and cake, Carson even decided to try to fill up her cup of lemonade herself - unsuccessfully I might add. After the some singing we all headed out to the pool. Well actually the three pools. One is a regular pool, one is a infant-type pool, and one is the playground pool.

The kids tentatively got into the playground pool and started to wade around. I took CarCar to the regular pool for a quick swim. I happened to look over and noticed the large bucket that dumps water over the playground was about to tip (dumping loads of water over the entire play area). I also noticed that Brother and Haddie did not realize it was a bout to unleash (don't worry they weren't in any danger). The bucket unloaded it's contents and you would have thought those two were trying to run to safety from a tsunami. They were screaming and running as fast as they could to the side of the play area. I know it sounds a little cruel, but it was kind of funny, actually to CarCar it was apparently really funny. Needless to say it took some coaxing to get them back in the area, but surprisingly Brother finally lead the charge. Well, later I was carrying CarCar around that area and we emerged from under the covered slide just in time to take the full brunt of the bucket. We were absolutely soaked.

Hey what does this have to do with fairies?

Well, the party favors, sans Brother were fairy wings. We gave them to the girls to play with this morning to play with and here are few pictures with their reactions.

The sweet, happy fairy.

The not so sweet, happy, well, kinda down right angry looking fairy.

The mood was apparently lightened by something.

Still happy and smiling.

Chris

What were you doing @ 1:30 Monday morning?

Note: We did not see Uncle Jesse at the ER.

Well to say that it has been an interesting past few days would be an understatement. Rian and I both had meetings on Sunday night and we had a crittersitter come over. I had noticed that Hadley was sounding a little raspy before I left but nothing too concerning. She seemed fine when we got back that night but around 9:30 she woke up and did not sound too good. We got her back to sleep but she woke up again around 12:30am. We sat with her on the couch trying to settle her down. She was having quite a coughing fit. It also sounded like she was wheezing and struggling to breath. After some back and forth we decided that we couldn't wait until the morning to take her to the doctor.

Haddie, piggy (luvie), and I headed to the ER at Tallahassee Memorial. It was a painless sign-in and triage experience, but that is where the pleasantries ended. LET ME TELL YOU THAT THERE ARE SOME INTERESTING FOLKS AT THE ER AT 1:30AM. I was able to secure a row of seats far away from everyone and we waited, and waited, oh and we waited some more. Finally we were taken back to a multi person room with some strange guy at the other end of the room. Luckily, there was a lot of separation between him and us. Not sure what was wrong with him but the nurses kept yelling at him about his IV.

Hadley was amazing at the ER. Especially for the fact that we were there until 4:45 in the morning. She had an x-ray to rule out pneumonia and we later found out she has croup. It was pretty funny, after we found out that there was nothing seriously wrong, when Hadley started to pack the diaper bag and stated "Let's go." Luckily we were out of there soon after she started to get antsy.

Hadley finally fell asleep about 5:30am and the others woke her up around 7:00am. She seemed a little better yesterday and slept through the night last night. Today she seems almost back to her normal self, but if you ask her how she feels she will tell you, "No, Haddie no feel toppers." We are gonna hold her out of school tomorrow but she will be ready and raring to go back on Friday.

This was Haddie showing off the teddy bear that the nurses gave her.

This was Haddie packing everything into the diaper bag so we could go home.

Chris

Off to School!

Well it finally happened. The Critters headed off for their first day of school. Has it already been almost two and a half years? The Critters started preschool at Faith Presbyterian this morning. It was an abbreviated day, only two hours, to get them used to the school setting. Apparently this is similar to a real school, they have a curriculum and everything. I don't believe that I went to preschool this young, but hey, we got to educate these youngsters for some scholarships.

The two teachers that the Critters have are wonderful, Mrs. Mills and Mrs. Pearson. We dropped the crew off this morning and apparently Carson and Reese had a little difficulty right after we left. Hadley could have cared less, she was already off doing her own thing. But the teachers said the after the two calmed down (only 5 minutes) they were great. I was a little worried about their first day but it seemed to go off without a hitch. Lets hope for a great second day on Friday!

Here are some pics from their first day:

Brother is already helping out.

CarCar was a bit apprehensive.

Hadley had a bow in her hair, I am not sure for how long.

Birthday Board.

Of course Hadley headed to the kitchen area.

CarCar getting her bearings.

Hadley found the baby dolls. (And look the bow is still in her hair!)

Chris

ps - As you can tell from the lack of posts I have been a bit busy with the girls room conversion. It felt like the never ending reno, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Brother's room is another story. We hope to have the camera out a little more and resume a normal posting schedule.

Here is a hint for today!

Post to follow later today!

Chris

And We're Back

I am back from an extended absence. Rian, the Critters, and I were in Orlando for a little bit and we are still transitioning the girl Critters into their big girl beds. How long is this supposed to take?

First off happy belated birthday to Grandma B (July 28th) and Me (August 2nd)! We were in Orlando for both, well I spent half of my birthday on I-75 driving back to Tallahassee. I guess it was only a couple hours but it sure can fell like half a day. We are in the midst of transforming our guest room that was a relaxing green into a perfectly pink room fit for Critter princesses, complete with Lilly P bedding. And believe me when I say pink we are talking a serious pink. I just have the crown molding and door frames left to paint, but don't worry we are keeping those white to try to buffer some of the pinkiness. I will have some pics up by this weekend.

Brother is probably the most excited about this move as he will remain in the nursery which will be transformed into his own little nautical space, complete with a Coast Guard pillow in honor of Grandpa Dave. The girls have taken to moving his crib around the room while he is trying to sleep. Apparently this is not condusive to sleep, but that is just an assumption. The down side to painting the nursery is the infamous striped wall. Can you say primer, oh, and then say it again. I am not looking forward to painting that beast. But in the end it will be a nice khaki color with navy blue furniture (some repurposed and painted).

The weekend before we left for Orlando the Girls had a Princess Birthday Party at the University Center Club at Doak Campbell Stadium. Yes, that is FSU's football stadium. The girls had a great time and came home with lots of goodies. Brother and i had the morning to ourselves. We drove through campus, and got lost a few times. Things have changed a little bit, like roads vanishing. After that we headed to the capital so Brother could run around in the courtyard and see the dolphin (or as Hadley says, Dol-fiiiiii-nnn) fountain. Brother had the best time running around and navigating all of the stairs, and let me tell you there are quite a few. After that we headed to Brother's favorite, Dog-et-al. He apparently worked up an appetite as he ate an entire meal and then some of mine.

That's all I got for now but I have a few posts about the room transformations and trips to the Tallahassee Junior Museum coming up.

Here are a few pictures from Brother's day at the capital:

Brother in the Capital Courtyard.

Brother pointing out an American Flag.

As you can tell Brother likes to point.

Brother by the Dolphin fountain looking at the Florida Supreme Court, or probably the American Flag.

Hadley in some of her princess gear.

Chris