Stubbornness and Determination

Well as I said in the last post, Addison finally got the stomach bug this past week. And while I'm sure most of you can imagine what a stomach bug entails, I'm going to elaborate a little for you anyway. ( so if you're the weak stomached type. Skip this first paragraph now.) It was the middle of the night and Addison had been throwing up and of course screaming bloody murder in between bouts of getting sick. I knew by the look in her eyes when she was going to get sick again so I would grab the bucket and hold it in front of her. She would start crying and say "no I don't want to! I don't want to!" and would you believe it that girl held it down several times. And if it came up, she would force it back down or refuse to spit it out. ( I know, I know, GROSS!) but ken and I just looked at each other amazed at how stubborn she was. She had made up her mind that she did NOT like the throwing up one bit and was NOT going to do it anymore. Ha! Can you say strong willed child? Lol! I wonder where she gets that from ;)


Ok so this little tidbit I just thought was cute. Ken was in the kitchen fixing his lunch when Addison came in. "daddy, Anna take buggy upstairs..." (picture her saying that in an "I'm telling on ou" sing songy voice.) a few minutes later Ken hears Anna noisily coming down the stairs and repeating to herself in a soft determined voice "I got it. I got it. I got it.." he looks and Anna ( sweet, little, short, Anna) is carrying her plastic grocery cart down our stairs. She makes it to the bottom, drops the buggy and comes running in the kitchen pushing her buggy yelling "I did it!!!"

Here's a completely unrelated pic of Addison and Anna picking up balls at the tennis courts. Anna spent several minutes trying to get all the balls she found over the fence. :). She also had her first run in with fire ants that day and other than a whiny "mommy!!" she never cried even though they stung her several times on her hand and her foot.

The gift I wish would stop giving...

So Sunday was mothers day and we had a fabulous morning at church then we drove out to Ken's parents new house on the lake. Which by the way is AMAZING! Seriously those views are gorgeous. But I digress, we had a great lunch. My father in law made my favorite grilled pork chops, my mother in law made a delicious fried corn recipe which I'm sure packed on a couple of pounds and then of course we had birthday cupcakes to celebrate Anna's birthday the day before. ( I realize that's a really long sentence. Forgive me)
After lunch we were sitting around talking when Anna climbed up on me and "lost her lunch" on me. Twice. Happy mothers day! Its the stomach flu! The poor kiddo never cried and was so pitiful we ended up going home a little early to get her comfortable. After her nap in her crib, she was back to normal and ready for dinner. Well early Tuesday morning ken got sick, I got sick Tuesday night and Alexis got it Wednesday morning. Thank heavens for my wonderful mother in law who not only came over to take care of the babies but also ended up taking care of all of us sickos and cleaned up my mess of a house. She is awesome.

Thursday, everyone seemed to be better or at least on the mend; so I began disinfecting the house. Floors, doors, walls, remotes, you name it. I was determined to wash or scrub the stomach flu out of the house. And wouldn't you know it, just as we're getting the girls ready for bed Addison walks in the playroom and gets sick.... Great.. Poor thing is gonna have a rough night tonight.

Thank you stomach flu, you have given us enough. Please stop giving.

Test run

Some of you may have caught wind that Ken is doing (what has been named) the Fat Boy challenge. The challenge is to run a 6 minute mile by March 3rd. Since he's been training, he's been eating healthier which has rippled into all of us eating healthier.. Lots of fruits and veggies!!

So Ken and I have decided to take it a step further.. We are going on a juice fast!

What? Annie not EAT anything? No meats? No cokes? I know.. mind blowing.. I type this as I stuff my face with cheetos, and Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Stop judging me!!

WHY??? You may ask, are you doing this? While I can't speak for Ken, I am going to do it for a couple of reasons. And while I don't want to sound cliche, its probably going to come out that way anyway so here goes. I am trying to be a better person, I'll keep the details to myself but let's just say eating and feeding my family heathier foods is on the docket. Enter the juice fast! And if I drop a pound or two in the process thats a bonus. :) The juice fast we'll be following is inspired by the documentary "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" if you haven't heard of it, you should Definitely watch it.

So this week, Ken and I will be starting our fast. Stay tuned for updates!

The lake!

So we went to the lake for an early birthday celebration for Ken. Ken's parent's are building their house on the lake on the most GORGEOUS property.  We had lunch and bday stuff and then went to see how the new house was progressing.  Ken and the girls tested out their new fishing poles. I unfortunately didn't get to test mine out. I was too busy being a nervous wreck clinging on to the girls waist bands in fear that they would fall trying to throw rocks into the water.

Clean carpets = shopping time?

When we bought this house, we had the carpets replaced. Since then, we've had 2 more kids which equals LOTS of juice stains. This week, Ken and I finally got fed up with our carpet and decided to have it cleaned. It looks AWESOME!     

do you notice what you don't see? Stains!!! Or toys. All of the mess has been temporarily relocated to the spare bedroom while the carpets dry.

So while we waited for the carpet to dry, we decided to get the girls out of the house and run some errands. We got AJ some new tennis shoes. 

I scored an awesome deal on a couple of super cute hand knit sweaters for the little ones.

And we got the girls new raincoats!  Click on the link to watch the video entitled RAINING! on the left side of the page. 

http://englandfamily.shutterfly.com/

midnight ramblings of a hungry insomniac

For the last couple months my head hasn't hit the pillow before 4am. So its a bit of an adjustment to make my body go "on Christmas Vacation". So here I am, chowing down on yummy Christmas ham, corn casserole and mac and cheese and updating you guys! The England home was VERY blessed this year. Santa (whom Addison does NOT like or care to see ever again)

brought the girls a pink wooden kitchen set with lots of food and pots and pans.  Alexis asked for a first aid kit and a bell from Santa's sleigh which she received. And Ken and I surprised her with an iPod touch. (I think that thing is permanently embedded in her hand). My mom got us a membership to the McWane Center which the girls are LOVING!

Addison and Anna are especially fun at this age. Addison is showing such a sweet and thoughtful personality. Here are a few funny/ sweet tidbits from the past couple of weeks.  Sorry for the repeat if you're one of my facebook friends and have already read these stories. :) You can skip on to the pics.

•   One night when I put the girls down for bed Anna was crying and Addison calmed her down. I stood outside the door and this is what I heard: 

                 Addison: "Anna, whats wrong? whats wrong?.. Stop crying. its ok. You want mommy? 
                 Anna: "uh Huhhh" 
                Addison: "its ok. stop crying. we get cereal in da morning okayyyy?" 
                Anna: "ok" :)

• I'm sitting on the couch playing on my laptop when Addison comes up to me:

                Addison: Anna got a booger mommy. I got it. (she brings me the base of a wooden toy tree the she apparently shoved up Anna's nose to get the booger.)
                Me: yup you got it didn't you? 
                Addison: Yeahhhh, Gwoss.

• Addison's favorite movie is Toy Story 3. We watch it AT LEAST 3 times a day.  So she was really excited to get her own Woody doll and Mr and Mrs. Potato head. Actually, the Mrs. Potato head is Anna's but Anna prefers wearing Mr. potato head's glasses.  If you've ever watched that movie, there's a scene where Ken is showing off all his clothing options to Barbie and the background music is that old song "Freak out". So Addison has picked up that phrase. " Mommy, I wanna watch Freak out" Yeahhhh, we're working on correcting that. haha!

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