Lynette's Dress

On Monday, the kids didn't have school and I took Lynette to pick out her wedding dress, at Bobby's behest.  Apparently her Mom has a terrible foot fungus rendering her unable to walk and her best friend keeps saying she can't afford to go with her, whatever that means.  She's nice enough but hearing her talk is the audio equivalent of watching middle of the night COPS reruns.  Hard to keep a straight face and bite my tongue as I hear about suicide attempts with butter knifes, self check-ins at Bunner Street due to a lunch lady that put tape on her son and how abusive all three baby daddies were.  Finally I asked her where she met these people and told her she needed a new crowd.  "That's what Bobby says," she answered.   She also has an awful habit of telling people she has low self esteem and claiming she can't make a decision.   I believe her but I also finally told her the best way to have better self esteem is to stop saying it is low.  That term is actually a pet peeve of mine; stop thinking about your "esteem" and just try harder.   And it's a first world problem.

Beyond that, it was fun to help get pick her dress.  It was the second she tried and she loved it and she GLOWED in it.  We tried on a few but came back to it.  We had the craziest helper and her and I bonded over large vocabularly and societal jabs.   Lynette said she was too perky and I corrected her.... She was clearly crazy and we know I do crazy well.   When Lynette picked her dress, this woman cried and rung a bell.   Overall, an entertaining but mentally exhausting afternoon.   And I do love wedding planning.

St. Patrick's Day Parade Camden Style

 So this past Saturday, we continued last year's new tradition of taking the kids out to Cory Bliss's house in Camden to watch their parade, which is the Saturday AFTER the holiday so as not to compete with Syracuse.  Of course, it was freezing and the road was muddy again.  Cory is Travis' brother, Todd's new BFF.  They live RIGHT on the parade route in a house that has been in her family for a long, long time.  They bought it from her Grandma's estate last year and spent a year renovating it, just moving in.  Ellie was actually born on Katie's birthday, which she seems to love.  They have a bunch of people, mostly family, coming and going.  Many are drunk, of course!  The parade wasn't as good as last year....I mean, many more trucks and a lot less dancers and such, but as you can see above, Abbey was THRILLED with the fire trucks.  Adam was there to get candy.  He's pretty good at it and did confirm for me later that yes, it was his favorite part of the day.  I brought Ellie out for a bit, but it was cold so not too long.  She was VERY serious watching the parade and taking it in :)

 Her FIRST parade!! :)

This is a shot of the house.  Yes, they put a porta potty in the front yard.  Which apparently Adam used when he went with Todd and Travis out to Travis's yard to get a ride in a new truck.  He was fascinated.  Eww.  He's even turned one of his toys into one!! In his imagination, there is apparently an entire trash dump below it.  And they are cooking chili over a fire and there is a fire in an oil can. Guess "city" code isn't enforced this day lol.  I didn't get to socialize, which was what I was hoping to do, much but it's OK.  Kids had a good time and I wasn't having a bad time.

And here is Ellie with her first cupcake frosting...apparently she "stole" it!  :)  

Ellie is Ten Months Old

 I can't believe it.  My baby girl is ten months old already.  She's a crazy crawler, a not so great sitter and an avid pull herself up and get mad when she falls back down girl.

 She's clearly having growth spurts the last few weeks... her size 6 month clothes finally look ridiculous on her and some of her nine month are starting to look a little short!  She loves her bottle more than food, but she's been working on feeding herself, which she prefers to being fed.  Adam was like that, too.

 She's so adorable.  Everything she does is so cute.  Except not sitting still when I change her diaper (finally a size 2!) and crying when I put her clothes on.  She's not thrilled with headbands either.

 My favorite picture of the day :)

 Trying to look out the window!  She's such a Daddy's girl.  When he comes home she practically jumps from my arms to his.

 Serious Ellie.  Everyone says she looks like me and I see it now.  But she's cuter.  And thinner.

 I just want to squeeze her and kiss her.  She has almost no interest in her toys.  She will crawl as fast as possible to get one of the other kids' rooms if the door is open.

 She was so tired!  I tried to get her photo with her monkey, but she just laid down and hugged it.  She has another cold :(   She gets colds easily.  I can't get her to lie down with me unless she's drinking a bottle and even then, she starts to want to play.  This past week, she has started sleeping right until 7 or 8.  Big girl!!

Abbey's Birthday

For Abbey's birthday, we continued our birthday tradition to head to the  toy store.  They got it now.  Birthday means toy store!  We explained to Adam he could pick out one thing, and he had is mind made up before we got there and stuck with it, which is pretty amazing for a five year old.  He got a Skylander for his Wii.  Abbey didn't quite get that she could get more than one thing because she still remembered her rule from Adam's birthday but once she did, she got pretty excited.  It was late when we were done and she went to bed without having gotten into everything.  I snapped this picture of the counter, to show the post birthday craziness!  She still loves her presents from her party and what she picked out.
My Ipad case bought it that week.  I had one my Mom had bought me last year, but hadn't switched because I liked what I had.  Right away, I was like I need a new one exactly the same what I had, but this one has grown on me.  But I took a picture so I could throw it out.  Funny what we get attached to.  
Now I'm fine with it.

And then last week, I had to throw out Elsa from the cake.  A little hard.  I mean, all the work that goes into these cakes!! AND, sometimes it feels like if I blink, I'll miss my kids growing up.  It's a funny feeling....feeling like the hours can be so long when they are acting out but feeling like the weeks slip by.  It was another successful birthday and hopefully, my kids will look back and remember how much fun these milestones were and not remember how they were forgotten one year or how their Mom didn't get a gift a certain year.  
That's what I want for them.

Abbey's Fourth Princess Party!

On the Sunday before Abbey's birthday, we had her party back at Merlin's Bounce House.  Once again, Kari's cake stole the show.  I had gone back and forth on what to have done as Abbey loves so many princess things, but I finally decided that she would just be wowed by a Princess Elsa cake.  I wasn't wrong.  She WAS WOWED.

 

She kept coming back to it.  It was pretty amazing.  And yes, I got a princess dress for her party :), which she also loved.

Ellie spent most of the night with Daddy.  She actually didn't want me for the first time by the end of the night.  Uncle Chuckie and Daddy kept picking up whatever she threw on the floor and she loved it. She's growing up!!! Yes, she looks like me.

I sent this photo to Todd.  That's Travis Bliss, his new Bromance.  He's actually made friends with someone younger than him.  Travis owns Bliss Environmental in the Rome area and is the one that gave me the pink cart.  He really likes Todd.  That's his ex-wife and daughter.  Todd sent him the picture and titled it Two Fat Guys and Three Beautiful Woman.  Ha.

The photos are mix of mine and Tammy's.  She got the Ellie shots.  Poor baby :(/

The kids had FUN!  Ethan Potter.

Pretty Annaleise.  She is already one and a half!

Aidan and John Kreuger.  Ginger family.

Birthday girl!

Jackie and Miss A.

Kyle Potter is HUGE.  His just under one here!

Toby was invited as Adam's buddy.  This kid is crazy.  He's pretty hot and cold, he's kind of the male version verbal version of Abbey.  My kids both love him.  I like his Mom.  I don't usually like new people.  Maybe I'm making a friend.

Classic beauty.

Cake time!

Presents :)

Cool pictures by Tammy.  Abbey just loved her cake and her princess party.

She does look beat! 

Favor bags :)  Amazing how many photos Tammy got when she got there for the last 45 minutes ;)

But she was nice enough to document this sign for me, because...I kind of got into it with the attendant. Abbey starting eating some pizza and she ran out and basically said all the kids had to get off the bouncies.  After some back and forth and a dramatic call to the manager, I told her I'd keep Abbey off for a few minutes.  Ugh.  It got so out of control.  Was dumb.  No one said anything to us at Adam's party, but I do understand the concept.  She was just one of those people who took it TOO FAR.  She had had like two bites.  Abbey was unaware of Mommy's drama.  Todd teased me he was staying out of it...I clearly got ticked.  But that aside, it's so nice to just throw a big great fun party for my kids.  It's one of our favorite things to do for them.  It's such an exciting time for them!!

Ellie is Nine Months!

Oh my, Ellie is getting closer to ten months...I need to tell you about her nine months!  Growing up so fast.  She is now completely on the bottle.  No interest or patience in nursing whatsoever.  Exciting to see her grow up, sad it's done.  She has started posing for the camera!  She sees it and grins and will crawl towards it :)

Her photo with the monkey.  God, her smile makes me feel good.  She goes to sleep with this monkey playing music every night.  She goes to bed between 7:45-8:45, depending what else is going on and how late her nap was.  Lately she's been staying up a lot of the day and taking a late nap and then going back to sleep for the night two hours after.

She eats most any baby food except it's clear she does NOT like peas or any combination with peas in it.  She's kind of a slow eater and it's hard to manage the other kids and give her the attention she deserves... her meals get drawn out as I have to get up and take care of something. It makes me feel guilty.  In general, she is my guilt child!!

She drinks a lot.  The doctor said not to hold her back as she is probably catching up.  She will drink from 32-40 ounces a day!  The recommendation is at the low end of that.  She's still tiny, but back on the charts, so healthy.  Fifth percentile weight and height at 14 lbs 13 oz and 241/2 inches.

Oh, I love this shot of her.  She sleeps well through the night until between 4:30-6.  I give her a bottle, lying between us.  She wants to see her Daddy and give him a kiss.  Then I put her back to bed and usually she sleeps for a couple of hours, which I need so I can take care of the other two.  So it constitutes her morning nap.  The rest of her day is not as regulated as the other two as we are always working around them.  It's probably why she likes an evening nap!  The rest of the day, she seems to only catch cat naps.  She still just loves Rock of Ages and now two clips I play from Coven with Stevie Nicks singing.  She is riveted.  She has entered Mommy attachment and will cling to me when people come over.  Ellie doesn't want me to leave.  BUT she has also developed a real attachment to Daddy.  She reaches for him and grins when he walks into the room and says DADADADADA.  She also says Baba.  I think the other day she screamed Mama when she wanted me to get her out of the store, but that's about it.

Just yesterday, she finally sat up.  I didn't put her in that position, she used Adam's bed and then his chair to get herself in that position.  It was so cute.  She clearly wanted to do it on her own.  Another independent Duttinger/Butler kid.

Valentine's Day 2014

Nothing too grand at home for Valentine's Day.  It's a holiday I like to emphasize with the kids as the act of showing love.  They both made Valentines for Dad.  And of course, I had outfits for the girls complete with hair bows made by Adam's teacher.  They are so cute and she makes them whatever I want for six bucks.  Half Adam's class wears them lol  Abbey kept changing her clothes, but oh, well.  Here was my attempt at getting a group photo before Adam went to school for his delayed sledding party.

I love their dynamic.  Ellie really looks up to them.

They love to shake her.  If you don't watch, they'll shake her LIKE CRAZY.

Ah, my rare real Adam grin on film!

This dress is in one of my favorite made to order fabrics.  I think it reminds me of Strawberry Shortcke or something.  I just love it.

Bailey love.

Doesn't this make you smile?

In the afternoon, I thought I'd try group shot again.  Nope.

I took this for the teacher's website.

Aw...

Adam helped me make a chocolate cake for Daddy. He seems to really enjoy cooking, especially for Daddy.  He went NUTS on the pariel sprinkles they were everywhere.

This kid will not smile for the camera.  We also made steak and potatoes for Daddy, at his request.

I got each of the kids one little gift.  Little frozen dolls for Abbey and a box of puzzles for Adam.

I wanted a cute shot in the "First Valentine's Day" bib all three kids have worn.  Ellie was no longer in the mood.

Cake time!