Bella's Ear

Last week after bath time and the bedtime routine Bail comes trotting down the stairs (which is completely normal for my kids and drives my absolutely nutty) with half-hearted concern for her baby sister. 

This is how the conversation went:

Bail: "Um mom"

Me: "Yes, what now?"

Bail: "Um, Bella just told me that One ear's on and one's off"

Me after I compose myself from giggling: "Just tell her to lay on the side of the off ear so the water can drain out"

Crack me up!!!

Mother's Day at Preschool

This morning I was invited to Bella's preschool classroom for a Mother's Day breakfast that her teacher had made for us. It was very sweet and wonderful to be able to have that time with Bella. AND to sweeten the pot I get to enjoy a bonus half hour to myself out of this lovely morning....breakfast was from 7:30-8am and she doesn't normally start until 8:30, so I have 4 whole hours to myself!!

Bella enjoying her breakfast...

The yummy egg bake and we also had cinnamon bread and OJ...

Me & my little sweetie...

She painted this beautiful pot for me with lovely flowers...

The sweet card that she made for me 

(apparently she's going by "II" now...we need to get cracking on writing her name)...

That's Just Not Being Christian

This was a conversation that Bella had with me today:

Bella: "Bail & Livia won't get me water in bed cause they say they are stuck in bed. And that's just not being Christian!"

Mom: "Well honey maybe they are tired and don't want to get up."

Bella: "No, they say don't want to get out of the covers and get me water. And that's just not being Christian mom!"

How do you argue with that?

(Mostly) Wordless Wednesday

So Sweet!! The girls were watching a movie together on a cot in our room and this resulted! 

Mardi Gras

Bella is all ready to celebrate Mardi Gras Mr. T style...

Really she only wore one strand of beads to school but she wanted a picture with all of them on. She brought some for her classmates and the rest went to school with the big kids to hand out!

Amazingly, all of these beads are left over from our Mardi Gras trip to Mobile, AL last year. As a matter of fact we still have 3 shoe boxes full of beads even after today...I guess we're set for a few years!

This is Don & I last year at the Mardi Gras Ball. Actually, this is the only photo that I have of the 2 of us that evening because he was pretty sick and left right after this photo (you can tell by the look on his face that he wasn't doing well). The poor guy missed just about the entire Ball.

Wordless Wednesday

3 1/2

3 1/2 is the number of years that Miss Bella has been addicted to her pluggie, and 3 1/2 is the amount of days that she has been going through withdrawal without her pluggie.

To be honest, I feel they (A&E) should have an episode of Intervention for pluggie users. For those of you who aren't familiar with Intervention...it's a show on Monday evenings on A&E, and it follows a person's plight with addiction, whether it be drugs, alcohol, eating disorder, etc. Don and I have watched this show several times, and if you haven't seen it I highly recommend that you do. The show can be very disturbing and upsetting at times but it really gives you some insight as to what an addict and their families goes through. It also makes think about your own family and what you need to do to lessen your families odds of becoming victims of these horrible addictions.

Anyway, this whole experience with the pluggie really has made me think of that show and Bella's difficulty in kicking her pluggie addiction. I don't recall any of the other three kids being quite so attached to their pluggies but maybe they were (heck I can't seem to remember anything...oh boy I sure hope I'm not plagued with Alzheimer's in my latter years...I digress). Also, in her defense she has been using it longer then we let the others (about 6 months or so)...which I will take full responsibility for because I have been trying to hang on to my sanity as long as I could. I think it's safe to say that this whole situation has pushed my sanity to whole new level that I didn't even know existed! (& I think Bailey's sanity was compromised too...she has been such a great help with this - THANKS baby!) I do feel bad for her because she doesn't know how to handle her emotions through all of this, and boy does she have them...I have had to deal with some doozy temper-tantrums which I'm sure are because of sleep deprivation.

With that said, my guess would be that tonight will go much smoother than the past two! Not because I think the habit has been kicked but because Don will be back home...just Murphy's Law...when you need them the most they aren't home & when they come home all just seems peachy again!

PS. Don has been in San Antonio for the past two nights for a site visit for the bowl game. He says it will be a great time & our hotel is attached to a mall (yeah!!). I sure am anxious for him to get home though! :)

Big Girl Steps

Update #2: Night #2 Did not go very well at all! First of all she fell asleep in the car on the way home from picking Bail up from dance...this ALWAYS makes for a longer evening because they had that little power nap it fires them up enough that they can't fall asleep at a reasonable time. Then throw in the fact that she didn't have her pacifier to pacify her! This child cried off and on all night, "IIII waaaant myyyy pluuuuuggieeee!", and of course her father isn't home to help me us through this (go figure). I was fried, so at about 10:30 I told her to just go lay in my room and watch Hannah Montana thinking that she would just calm down and crash to that....WRONG. Don had called me, we chatted and he says, "she must be sleeping", and of course minutes later her the pitter-patter of feet above me...You have got to be kidding me! I decide to just let her sleep with me and am thinking that once I lay down with her she'll crash...well instead I crashed at about 11:45PM. She had fallen asleep sometime between 11:45 and 1:30am...this is when I woke up to shut the TV off. Knowing this child my guess would be that she feel asleep closer to the later time rather then the earlier time.

Oh and let me tell you this morning was NOT a treat either!! She was a BEAR!!! 

No sleep + no pluggie = a headache for mom!

I sure hope that tonight goes better....trust me no nap for this kid today...I want her good and tired come bedtime!!! :)

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Update: Bella did a great job last night without her pluggie! She was a bit restless, but it did help that her big sister, Bail, laid in bed with her for awhile! She is currently at school and then after we're off to pick out her new baby.

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Ms. Bella made big girl strides today...she threw her pluggies (pacifiers) away...YEAH BELLA!!! She had two remaining, one had a hole in it, and the other one I noticed this morning looked disgusting. I told her that the disgusting one would make her sick (which I really think would if she kept sucking it). After some hemming and hawing she decided that I may be right and asked me to put them away in the cupboard. I suggested that maybe we should just throw them away since they were in such bad shape and she was right on board. She asked for them, took to the trash, and dropped them in!! She was so proud when she did it as was I. I told her that tonight will be really hard and she will probably cry and she said, "no I won't mommy"! I told her if she was a big girl about it we could go get a prize...she wants a new baby with a bottle. We gave each other a big hug, I told her again how proud of her I was, and she went about her day!

Keep your fingers crossed for us tonight...it's going to be along one!

Ellie's Here

Ellie arrived safely today and is currently getting lots of love and attention! I sure hope that tag is prepared for the attention it's going to get! 

I'll post a picture tomorrow!

Answered Prayers

Saint Anthony answered our Prayers....our prayers are not always answered in the way that we think the should be but THEY ARE ALWAYS ANSWERED!

It has really been bothering me that we have not been able to find Bella's Ellie...I know we shouldn't get attached to material possessions but when it's something that your child has loved and carried since infancy it's kind of hard not to. Not to mention it's hard seeing your child so upset about it as well so as a mom of course you want to fix what's hurting them.

I have been turning this place upside down since we discovered Ellie was missing, but obviously have had no luck. Yesterday, when I learned that our friend's baby had been born I started the hunt for a gift for him. I texted Adriene to find out where she got her child's lovies to see if that was something that maybe I wanted to get the baby. She immediately called me back concerned and wondering if I was looking for another replacement for Ellie. We both happened to on our laptops while talking and she had asked if did a search online for a new one....which I had and had no luck. So just for fun she starts searching, and then starts asking me questions like: Is it green with pink satin?, Does it have an elephant head?, Does it have another elephant on the blanket part?, does it have the words LOVE ME on it?.....Umm YES to all of that....where did you find it?? EBAY!

At this point my adrenline is now a runnin'....I get on Ebay to where she is and immediatly place my bid, but the auction didn't end for 2 days. I do have a life and didn't think it would be wise to parked in front of my laptop for 48 hrs (although I really wouldn't mind but the knee biters would nag me the whole time). So I decided to email the seller with my woes and see if they would do a buy it now for me. They were kind enough to do this for me and even upgraded the shipping to priority at no extra charge! 

She is on the way! If by chance the original does rear it's head then we'll have a back up...maybe an at home Ellie and a car Ellie!

Thank you Saint Anthony!!!

St. Anthony Help Us!!

Update: Still no sign of Ellie anywhere which totally blows mind...our house isn't the most clean and organized but it's not that bad! I have been RACKING my brain since Tuesday to come up with every possible place it could be and of course every little angle I had offered nothing. Finally last night before bed I offered up a cash reward for the 1st person to find it. Cash is a big motivator so we hopefully will have that little Ellie in hand by the end of the weekend...if not I might have to bring a medium to help me out!

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So life is not good right now for the three year old because her best little buddy is missing and has been since Monday sometime. We have searched high and low in this house and can't seem to find her Ellie. Now it's time for some Saintly intervention because I'm at a loss right now and she is bummed out! I will be sad too if we can't find it...she has been loving on it since she was an infant, so it holds sentimental value too!

So here are some prayers to Saint Anthony the Patron Saint of Lost Things....please feel free to say these prayers in the hopes that he can help us to find our baby's best friend!!

Novena to Saint Anthony to Find a Lost Article

St. Anthony, perfect imitator of Jesus, who received from God the special power of restoring lost things, grant that I may find Ella's Ellie which has been lost. At least restore to me peace and tranquility of mind, the loss of which has afflicted me even more than my material loss. To this favor, I ask another of you: that I may always remain in possession of the true good that is God. Let me rather lose all things than lose God, my supreme good. Let me never suffer the loss of my greatest treasure, eternal life with God. Amen.
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St. Anthony, St. Anthony
Please come down
Something is lost
And can't be found
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Dear St. Anthony, I pray
Bring it back, without delay.
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Something's lost and can't be found
Please, St. Anthony, look around.

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My poor baby is crying for her Ellie as I type (break my heart)!

Out of the Mouths of Babes #19

Tonight we went to a fundraiser for our children's school at one of the local pizza places in town (a favorite of many). They offered 15% of profits made today for our school but you had to present the form for us to get the discount...they said it was the best turn out for a fundraiser yet -AWESOME!! (Great job Tony)!!

So on the way there there is chatter going on in the car...mostly about everyone's day, and out of nowhere this comes out of  Bella's mouth: "Boys have murses and girls have purses!". We have no idea where or what prompted that but we all got a good laugh out of it.

Kids say the darnedest things!