Printed

I printed my first year in blogland with blog2print. I am not going to lie, it was a PITA and time consuming. The site is sooo slow and I am not patient. You can't change any wording. For example, I have a few posts with both video and pictures. I didn't want to delete the entire post because I wanted the pictures included but I didn't want my commentary about the video since it obviously wouldn't be printed. You can't add more pictures to a particular post only at the end of the book. All those photo montages had to be manually added at the end. I had already put too much time it to start all over again but the next book I will do all my editing in my blog and have it ready to go when I upload to blog2print that way I only have to delete the posts from there that I don't want to be printed. I am excited to get it in the mail though. It was fun looking back, kinda like a web version of a diary with pictures and all. Also what I needed to get me back to updates. Looking back the first 2 years I had 333 posts and from there the number decreased dramatically.

A few of the blogs first pictures....

Cinnamon Toast Done Right

All these cold days being inside have me looking for some warm comfort. I follow Pioneer Woman occasionally involving her photo tips. I never paid much attention to the cooking. Until a friend posted something about her cinnamon toast. My stomach immediatly grumbed and I couldn't resist. She lists many ways of making cinnamon toast. I LOVE cinnamon toast. I am not sure who I was pregnant with at the time but I think I had it with breakfast every morning and as a snack some days. Even Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. Yummy! Now that I have Brooke loving it I have an excuse to keep it in the house. Costco sells it so I get it 2 bags at a time. Get it? I love cinnamon toast. I found out I was making it not only the wrong way but Pioneer Woman referred to it as gross. Oh no what have I been missing?

Oh my goodness. I will never be able to go back to my straight out of the toaster method. This was sinful. In a good way and in a not good weight watcher point way. Brooke ate the whole thing, crust and all. I ate my piece and half of Lindsey's.

Wordless Wednesday

Spring Tease

Ah yes signs of Spring WERE in the air. Bubbles, bikes, walks, and all without hats, mittens, snow boots, and winter coat required. Well at least for a few days. It was so nice to get outside. Brooke was riding around the block on her bike while Lindsey had a nice ride in her car.

Brooke wrote her name, mom, and dad in sidewalk chalk. I had to write Lindsey's name. Mom you write it. I don't know how and it is just too long. I was just happy she wrote Mom and not Kelli. She told me the other day that she was just going to call me by what every else calls me. So now I hear, "Kelli, I want a snack". Weird.

Hanging out watching Brooke draw pictures under our names. I tried to give Lindsey some chalk but she just tossed it aside which did not make Brooke happy. Kinda like breaking her favorite crayon. Lindsey was much happier to play with toys anyway. Who needs that silly chalk anyway, have you seen what these toys can do?

Back to the hats, mittens, coats, and boots until next time.

Warm but not that warm

We have had a nice little spring feeling these last few days. The snow is slowly melting away leaving the ground soft and muddy. I told Brooke this morning it was going to be warmer out today and we could get her bike out to play outside. She was thrilled. "Can we go to great grandma's and go swimming"? Sorry Brooke it's not that warm. The feeling that spring may be around the corner is great. Until then we will stick to swim classes.

My little Eel.

Posing when she wants to and how she wants to.

Brooke also had a nice little conversation with me in the car last night. It went something like this.

Brooke- Mommy do you know what I wish for?

Me- What do you wish for?

Brooke- That I had a rocket ship with 2 potties. One for the girls and one for the boys.

Me- Where would you go in this rocket ship?

Brooke-To the beach in Florida.

Me- Don't forget to take me.

Happy Valentine's Day

Slow it is

Ahh things were smooth and Lindsey seemed to be making real progress. The flu hit our house early in the week. I will leave out all the details. We hopefully all have had our turn and are on the mend. All this and possibly a few teeth for Lindsey has her resorting to her old ways. Screaming like the push toy is pure torture and not wanting to eat much. We had to cancel her PT Tuesday and her clinicians at PMD Thursday even said that she didn't want to do much other than play in the pool. So we take a step back for whatever reason. But we all know for sure the girl can do it!

Lindsey also has a new favorite game. It is called climb a few stairs, look back at Mommy, laugh, and try to get up as many stairs as possible laughing while Mommy chases after her. Good news, she knows the "proper" feet first to go back down the stairs. Still not to be trusted.

As we take a step back at the week I was going through pictures from a couple months ago and this face made me smile.

Slow but Steady

Finally, Lindsey has decided this isn't torture but a fun push toy.

Every time we would try and stand her up to it her legs would come up and she would scream. She cruises along the furniture really well and has been able to do some transitions from one surface to the next. Tuesday I thought I would pull it back out of the basement and see what happened. Well what do you know? She pulled up to it and started walking behind it hitting the buttons to make some music as she went along. Proof once again Lindsey has her own agenda.

She did fabulous at PT this morning. Her PT reassured me she is still where she would expect her to be gross motor wise taking her low tone and personality into account. She does think Lindsey is on the more severe end of low tone when it comes to other kids with Down syndrome. She is climbing the stairs to look back and see if you are going to come after her laughing. Lindsey climbed up the slides and back down on her belly a few times. Her favorite part of PT is the swing. My hope is that come summer I won't have to put a blanket down in the grass to plop her on. Not that she will stay on it anyway. I will try and get a video posted once I figure out how to weight the push toy so it doesn't get ahead of her without my help.

Snow Days

Now as an adult I have reverted back to getting excited about snow days. Little did I realize, Brooke's preschool is in a school district that rarely closes.

I remember waking up early cuddled down by my parents dinosaur of a stereo listening for when the hosts would do a run down of school closings. There was no scrolling bar at the bottom of the local stations and rarely did the news ever even mention my school out in the sticks. Now though I get text alerts. How cool is that? Nerdly I know but I was so excited when I heard my phone chime that I had a text last night after 10pm. All the other schools in the area had been closed for hours. Surely Ottawa Hills would have to close eventually.

So today was Brooke's first snow day. We stayed in our PJs till after lunch.

Made pizza grilled cheese, did a way too many crafts, and just played.

and yes, we did make it outside to play in the snow during Lindsey's nap. Brooke just wanted to make a snowman. I had to tell her it wasn't packing snowman kind of snow. She was determined to make a snowman and a snowman she did make. At the end of the day I am not sure who was more tired.

Wordless Wednesday

Welcome February

We welcomed February with more snow. Lindsey's ST called this am for a snow day. Brooke's preschool is in a school district that must have snow plows on the front of the buses or heated streets. They were the only school in the area that didn't cancel. Hopefully the groundhog can make it through the snow drifts tomorrow and bring on spring.