Why there are no pictures

So we got a new, nicer picture taking camera. And the battery died. And you have to pug the re-chargable battery into the wall and I didn't know which (of the 1,232 plug in appliances we have) was the right one. But we are hooked up now. I have been taking pictures with the 'old' camera, but I can't get the pics to download. Will try again tomorrow.

Today was CRAZY!! It started off with the 2 a.m. screaming of Ellie, for 10 minutes. Finally she gets settled in our bed (yah). Then, of course, Ashley is awake. Once she is awake she has a HARD time going back to sleep. So every 10 minutes from 2 a.m. to 3:20 a.m. she is calling 'mamma, mamma' and I get up and go see what she wants. Finally she comes to bed with us and everyone goes to sleep.

So needless to say, I did NOT get up at 5 a.m. with Josh to get all my morning stuff done. Did get most of that stuff done (grading, scriptures, breakfast, preschool). Then Heather and Auntie K invite us to play and talk in SLC, so I figure, we can go to the library today instead of tomorrow, so off we go (no exercise done yet, notice).

Have a delightful chatting, get some great books at the library, head home. Get the Family Night chart FIXED!! It looks great! Picture to follow.

Clean out car, finish visiting teaching, take car to car wash. Make bread. Make pumpkin pie. Clean house. Finish three loads of laundry. Start dinner. I just want to go exercise!! (I like to make a list of what I did because 1) it makes me realize sometimes I DO DO too much 2) one day I will look back on it and be amazed I had that much energy.)

For Family Night, we put up the manager scene and decorated the tree. There were chocolates to eat, as per the Bluemlein family tradition. (There are some left over if you come visit!)

AWESOME post here
(http://jasonandheatherlewis.blogspot.com ) about the Christmas season.

Montana, potties, and no-tax-Black Friday!

Montana is lovely this time of you - you should go visit! We had a delightful visit with the grandma and grandpa of the northern land and Ashley is still yelling "grandpa" all the time.

We had a completely successful trip up AND back with the potty. A few minor accidents at the household, but nothing on the road - we are ready to travel!

Other exciting news is that there is NO SALES TAX in Montana - everything costs what is says! So we got a few presents for the girls and momma got some crafty supplies for the winter-sewing. AND I (stood in line for about 20 minutes at 7 a.m.) and got a AWESOME amount of thread in 100 colors! Check it out:

Very busy week coming up - yah!

A scam and braces news!

Best news first! I get my top braces off at 8:50 a.m. on DECEMBER 17!!!!

YAHYAHAYAHYAHAYAHAYAHAAYAHHAYAAHAYAHAHA

No word yet on the bottom ones - but that is half way done!!! YAHAYAHAYHAHAAYHAHA

We made it safely to grandma and grandpa's house in Montana and even got to spent the night with the cousins. It will be fun just to sit around and play tomorrow. (And maybe hit some sales with grandma on Friday!!)

Bad news: we got our first adoption scam! Well after more than 20,000 hits on our parentprofiles site we got a scammer call. Lots of red flags and our wonderful caseworker called about it. That is fine, no trauma. Maybe we will get some legit calls now!

Happy turkey day to you all and we are so grateful to have you in our lives.

I think we are a go!

This potty stuff is definately getting easier. A few reminders, a few small clean ups. I think we are doing it! Yah! Josh got home on time - yah!!! It is SO nice having him here!! Had the missionaries over for dinner tonight- nice. Nice Saturday at home.

Made our first gingerbread house (we entered the city gingerbread contest and we have started practicing. And, yuppy-like, we find a set of cookie cutters for a whole gingerbread house! That is what we used to start, we will see what we end up with on Dec. 3.)

Potty update

I think it will be OK!

Yes, there was only ONE accident today in the potty-world. I realized I thought it would be 24 more years of like 13 accidents a day. But no! Today gave me hope!

I only had to remind the girls a few times - and then they would jump right up and go! NICE!

I guess I thought 'potty-trained' meant no accidents, no reminding, etc. But like most things it is a process.

So I am more hopeful about that whole thing - there is hope!

Here is a picture of how we like to spend our mornings these days.

Ellie definately has pink eye in her left eye. It looks sad! Trying eye drops. Here is another favorite playtime:

Also, today for dinner we had some raw veggies: carrots (for Ellie), snow peas and cucumbers. Ellie only ate veggies (no main course) and ASHLEY picked up a snow pea and ATE A BITE!!! Yes!! The girlfriend ate a veggie by herself!

And THEN she asked for a carrot (maybe because Ellie was eating like 7 of them?) She tried to bite it with her front teeth and I was trying to show her how to bite it on the side or back (but I don't eat carrots because they make me swell up). She gave it a few chomps. GO ASH!!!

Snow, sickness and stuff

So it snowed last week:

A good time was had by all!
For some reasons, Ellie has been putting things (wet things, water, snow, etc.) in her hair. Here she is putting some snow on her hair.

Everyone liked making snow angels:
We have been playing tent a lot recently:
Ellie looking sassy:
The colds are better. But we still sat on the couch for 4 hours this morning watching 'toons. ALL good. Had a GREAT time at Auntie Heather's and Emma's and Jason's Monday and Tuesday. Auntie Holly was a great auntie also -the mommies got to go to the store by themselves -JOY!

AND Heather let me to go the bookstore by MYSELF for like 30 minutes - JOY!! Isn't it funny how easily we are happif-ed sometimes? My sewing maching is getting fixed in Provo so I am finishing other crafties so I can get some sewing done soon!

Josh is in Dallas this week getting smarter and meeting important people. We are having fun - had bread pudding for dinner! Yum! We are excited to see him on Friday. Enjoying the colder weather and being together. Had like 17,567 hits on our adoption website - wow!

An ENGLISH question!!!

Now you may have realized (as I did today) that I have been teaching for my college for EIGHT (8) years come December. And I have gotten two raises in that time, so nice - one was for $20!

Anyway, that means I have been teaching online classes for about 5.5 years. And TODAY someone asked me an ENGLISH question!!!!

More than 99% of ALL the emails, frantic phone calls, etc. are about due dates, grades, working the online system, 'my cat died can I get an extension.' But TODAY I got a REAL question! And I had to think for a second to figure it out!

"What does STET mean in the proofreaders marks?"

JOY!!!

(STET means ignore the correction - you did it right the first time).

There is a first time for everything.

It takes a long time for the world to end

So we (being the SciFi junkies and end-of-the-world movie lovers that we are) went to see the new end of the world movie.

Let's just say it raises some great (but unsolvable) social questions and it takes WAY long for the world to end. About 2 hours and 30 minutes to be precise. And after seeing ALL of humanity die horrible deaths, why in the world would we stand around for 11 precious minutes cheering that one guy (the hero, of course) made it out alive?!?!?!? Anyway, it was pretty good.

And the lovely movie was preceded by a wonderful dinner date at the new 'fancy' restaurant in town. I had YUMMY meat - cooked JUST right (no mooing at all and with crunchy bits!) with some DIVINE mushroom sauce. YUM!

The potty events have gone pretty dang good. Ellie is getting to be a pro at all potty activity (i.e. #1 and #2). Ashley is GREAT at getting a few drops of pee out whenever it is 'potty' time. Both girls were dry all night (thanks in part to the fact that Ash and I were basically awake from 2 a.m on due to her coughing. I tried EVERYTHING! (including potty breaks for everyone - asleep and awake) to help her stop. Eventually the mommy, daddy and a coughy-Ashley went downstairs at 5 and watched TV together - and strangely she stopped coughing right after that!)

Our little girls are growing up! Strange to think maybe we are actually done with diapers. Weird. Is this going to make us stop like 123 times on the way to Montana in two weeks? Is this good? How many accidents are waiting in our futures? Oh well, even if the world ends, I have a good stock of chocolate chips and cake mixes! (and a few diapers in the closet, just to be sure).

Exciting potty news!

We have been talking for a while about going 'cold turkey' with BOTH girls on the potty and the girls (Ellie) decided that today would be the day!

So last night Ash and Ellie got to pick out a pair of panties to wear this morning and we put them beside their beds, so we would remember to be excited about panty day.

It has gone pretty good! (And sweat pants hold a LOT more pee than shorts - FYI). We had many successful bathroom trips and just three accidents! Ash even told Josh in the store on their 'date' that she needed to go and he took her (I think that was his first time!).

So that is the happy news. It finally got cold. YAH sleeping when it is cold!

Throw up phone

I forgot to mention that when Ashley threw up, I was holding her on my lap on her bed, with my cell phone asking my mom (a nurse) why she wouldn't stop coughing. So now my phone smells like throw up. Nice.

Great reason to go and get new phones Josh said!

Tomorrow we are going to put up the outside Christmas lights. Not turn them on. But be prepared for more snow! Josh likes to put up the tree the day after Thanksgiving. Yah!

Not the flu

After Ashley coughed so hard that she threw up last night, we went to the doctor. Actually we woke Ellie up also (figured they both have the same thing after all). There is a great night-peds clinic at our doctor's office, so we went there.

Nobody has anything 'identifiable' - nice. Ash might have a touch of airway issues - since she just coughed and coughed last night. Apparently once you start coughing, then your airway gets inflammed and you just cough more. Yah for drugs!

So we are slightly better today. Josh got to celebrate Veteran's Day at home (yah federal holidays!) and is taking tomorrow off too since none of his colleagues are going to work on Thursday! NICE! We raked leaves and mowed the lawn this afternoon - it is suppose to maybe snow this weekend. Just an update on everything. Thank you to all our veterans and military personnal out there - we really appreciate your sacrifices for our country.

"Mamma, I don't want to be sick anymore"

I think that about sums up our weekend. Lots of coughing. Lots of snuggling. Lots of juice. LOTS of cartoons. Poor little monkeys. Josh was great at taking care of us (even mommy with her afternoon yuckies). Today we are looking forward to lots of the same. Yah for juice and TV!!

We are sick

It is hard when your little kiddos are sick. They just look (and sound) horrible! And you feel bad for them. And then your brain feels bad from watching 324 consecutive C.aillou cartoons. So don't come and play. Hopefully we will be recovered in a few days.

Our excellent neighbors

So on Tuesday I made (from SCRATCH!) a chicken pot pie for my sweetie for dinner. Only it bubbled over and spilled on the bottom of the oven and then the smoke detectors went off. They are VERY loud.

But I couldn't figure out what was gonig on. I thought it was the veggies I was doing on the top of the stove. So I was confused for like 5 minutes. The alarms are yelling at us. Ellie has her hands over her ears. Ashley is crying. Finally, I look in the oven and figure out what it is and take the girls outside to the garage where it is not so loud.

(OK, so maybe the smoke alarms have been going off for like 10 minutes). And THREE of our WONDERFUL neighbors came over to make sure we were ok. (the whole thing is embarrassing, but then I wanted to remember how excellent it is to have such great neighbors who would have helped us out in an event).

Finally, Josh comes home and turned off the alarm. (YAH!)

But then like 5 minutes later the alarms went off AGAIN. For like another 10 minutes. Oh well.

"Hey, at least a preschooler isn't beating me in bowling!"

Yes, it is true. The preschoolers ALMOST beat us in bowling. (Well, I think they DID beat me (BARELY)...but see below for details).

And me! The former winner of the Golden Bowling Pin from 9th grade gym class (there was a bowling alley like 2 blocks from the high school and we got to bowl for like 2 weeks - actually a really good life-skill - thanks Vincennes School District!).

OK, the story. On Saturday afternoon we were looking for something to do as a family before the Halloween-treats. So Josh remembered that we had wanted to go bowling. So we load up the preschoolers and go get our sexy bowling shoes on!
And seriously, it was almost embarrassing. With the bumper bowling and the ramp that led right to the #1 pin - for more than half the game they were BEATING us!!! I'm hanging my head in shame!
But they LOVED it!! (please ignore bad photos -they were doing 'spooky lighting' and we only had a cell phone camera! - but you get the idea).

I did yell our title today at Josh ("Hey! At least a preschooler isn't beating me in bowling") right BEFORE my spare, strike and then FIVE gutterballs. Sigh. If you can read bowling scores, here it the final line-up:

We got home from all that fun and the clothes dryer wouldn't work! Would not even turn on! So I took the last load of clothes (all small and pink, hum!) over to our wonderful neighbor and Josh got on the internet.

Two hours later the dryer was put COMPLETELY back together, I had vaccummed out like 4 pens and 2 tons of dust (as the assistant) from the whole thing and when we turned it on.... IT WORKED!!! My sweetie is the BEST!!!!

On our Sunday afternoon walk, we went to a 'new park' and the girls loved it. Josh got pictures of them climbing back up the slide, and then dragging each other back down - giggling loudly the whole time.

Then on the way home, there was a little hill at the park and Josh told Ellie to roll down it -so they both did of course. Ashley looked a little dazed after the first roll - but jumped right up to try it again!

Of course, then Daddy had to show everyone how it was done. Fun!

Halloween

After much debate and a last minute costume change, yes, we did have two princesses for Halloween:
Josh keep trying and trying to get a shot of both of them smiling (while I laughed in the corner and yelled "GOOD LUCK") and then they started 'bopping' each other with their wands, etc. So here are some pictures:

And of the Trunk o' Treat at church was great. Josh decorated the back of the van really cool - can you see the spider in the web?

Not only did the kids get a candy haul, but there were doughnuts inside too!

I dressed up like a kitty (since someone else didn't want to)

One guy was yelling "CANDY!" and so all the kids were chasing him to get more candy!

Ellie was super cute when we got home. When the doorbell would ring, she would run to get her candy bag and was insistent that she share her candy with whoever was at the door. Cute sharing!

Our week

So here are some other cute pictures I found on various phones, old memory cards, emailed from people, etc. that I figured should eventually show up on the family blog!

The girls and Cousin Emma from the journey to Vegas. This was the BEST Mc'D's EVER - had a HUGE play set and TWO foozeball tables!!

Ellie found the camera and took like 57 shots of stuff - especially Ashley. Some of these are not too bad! (more spontanous that the stuff I can get!)

We finally put up a little coat rack and a shoe basket by the front door. Yah organization!

On Tuesday (this week) it snowed a bit and lasted most of the day.

Auntie Holly came to visit and on Wednesday we had to plow out her car from the snow (almost). Thanks for the nap when I was feeling so crappy Holly!
Note: What is up with this mommy-flu? You feel crappy, but not bad enough to lay in bed - enough energy to do all your regular stuff, but while feeling horrid!