what's a pinky for?

caroline was playing ball with her friend on friday at school. apparently she caught the ball funny, which bent her pinky backwards. she went to the school nurse, who called me to say it was swollen but looked ok and they were icing it. i spoke with caroline on the phone as well and she wanted to stay at school since there was a science show that day. i knew she must be alright since the girl is always willing to leave school early. i told her i would pick her up at carpool then, rather than after school to be sure.

when i got to her, it (said left hand pinky) was pretty swollen and bruised. so off to the pediatrician's office we went at 4pm on a friday afternoon. after a 45 minute wait, which really tried my patience,  and a 5 minute observation, he sent us off to the children's hospital for an x-ray. they were much faster thankfully. lb was holding up pretty well through all of this despite knowing she was missing soccer practice and needed a good meal.

the x-ray showed she did have a fracture in her pinky. on the growth plate. did you even know there was a growth plate in your pinky? i didn't.

so yup, she broke her little finger.

then come this past wed, 5 days post break, caroline goes to a hand specialist (thanks to that growth plate break). it is there they tell phil that they will cast it for a week, x-ray it again, and see where the bone is. depending on how the week goes, she may need a pin in it. a pin. in her little pinky.  again with the luck of this girl.

does she even use her pinky much? other than pointing it out during her royal tea parties with princess hadley. guess it would be all sorts of wrong on our part, as the parents, to object to the pin. that being said, i don't like the idea of surgery over a little finger.

so now we wait. green cast and all. praying she does not need surgery.

on the bright side, lb had a great time getting all of her friends to sign her cast. by the end of the first day, it was full. even her dad and sister signed it. i still need to but there isn't much room. friends come out of the woodwork when it is time to sign a cast!

no matter what she is going through, fish bone in the tonsil... ant bites on the ankle... broken pinky.... lb is always smiling. i love and admire her for that.

wordless wednesday

snuggle time

sometimes they fight.

sometimes they share.

sometimes they antagonize.

sometimes they play.

and sometimes you can even catch them snuggling.  

phases, kind of like the moon

ok, so i have been thinking about hadley and the phases she goes through. i've come to the conclusion that there are two. two phases that she goes through, mostly on a daily basis. and this very well might be the case for a lot of toddlers her age, in the 2-3 year age range. it has to be. (pretty sure i was just trying to make a justification excuse right there in case i am wrong)

phase 1

the 'oh. my. gosh. she is so flipping adorable' phase. i could eat her up. i could breathe in the very tiny words she says in her utterly sweet toddler voice. words as simple as ok and yes, to the more stumbled upon big words like sunshine (shunshine) and spaghetti(sgetti). love how she says them. seeing the world again as everything is brand new. loving the simple things like playing in the front seat of a car, picking wild flowers, throwing rocks, and jumping on beds and in puddles.  i love how one blue m&m can take 5 minutes to eat and completely turn her thumb and pointer finger blue. oreo mustaches are like a million times sweeter on her face (and more socially acceptable!). milk dripping down her chin as she eats cereal from a spoon on her own mesmerizes me. love it.  love it all. the way she watches, admires, and learns from her big sister is probably one of the things i cherish most right now about hadley. her eyes are filled with wonder and admiration with everything caroline does. then to see her try to mimic it all, to be like just like her. hadley glows when caroline is near. glows, people!  there are just so many amazingly wonderful things that i get to view every day as the mother to a toddler. i treasure them all knowing very well this passes so quickly. it already has. she's growing so much. every single day. she makes me smile all over.

phase 2
the 'oh. my. gosh. i wish i was a heavy drinker about now so i didn't feel all this pain pulling my hair out' phase. she is such a stubborn, tough child. so set in her ways. so independent. ok, so your thinking, "and why is that a bad thing?". it is just tough in the moment when you want the girl to just get dressed and not scream at the fact that you are trying to put shorts on her because all of her skirts are still in the laundry. just wear the shorts already! or does not want to put on a shirt that is any color but blue. it is tough when you just want to sit down and eat dinner as a family. that's it. that's all i want you to do. sit down and eat your dinner. that rarely happens. she doesn't want to be in a chair at the table eating dinner when fun stuff could be going on in the playroom. she doesn't want to sit down in a chair at a restaurant, even once the food arrives. she would rather be her leisurely self and run rampant around the restaurant. this girl has like 10 different pairs of shoes. i kid you not. and she wears one pair. the same pair. every day. and even that one pair takes me 3 tries to get on her feet perfectly. not too tight. not too loose. we are talking velcro pulled just the right amount kind of perfection here or the screams come. pajamas! what's that? this girl does not sleep in pj's. ever. in fact, she runs in the opposite direction from the pj's. she sleeps in either her regular shirts and undies or the full on outfit of shirt, undies, and a skirt. she doesn't distinguish between night and day clothes. and now that we are potty trained (woohoo! i'll post more on that another day) she doesn't want a pull-up on at bedtime. come on already. please, just put the pull-up on so i do not have to wake up at 2 in the morning to change your bedding since you had a normal pee break in your deep sleep like every other potty trained toddler. just put the ariel pull-up on. please. what? you're hungry as you lay in bed about to go to sleep feeling all crabby and cranky because you didn't eat your dinner again? no. i can't get you a snack. don't scream and swat at me. you really just need to eat your dinner like you are supposed to.

being the parent to a toddler is tough. so many struggles happen on a daily basis. some that make her laugh (at me more or less). and some that make her cry a river. you never know how it will end. she lives in the moment. she makes the family crazy sometimes. she wears us all out. she keeps us all on our toes. she is so very haddie gray. every day.

every read the "olivia" books?  they remind me of our hadley.

wordless wednesday

etsy for art

a new favorite vendor of mine on etsy is emu designs (out of poland!). they have really fun scandinavian style art, all in great colors. i love the unique choices in animals on each graphic. they aren't just your average zoo animals. and the little bunting adds a bit of playfulness to each.

i think the animal prints would be a sweet addition to any nursery or even a little playroom.

the fox and the keep cool prints are my favorite.

a room to grow with

i loved sharing pictures of hadley's nursery back in 2011. it was a room that i loved and was so proud of how it turned out with the grey walls and pink/orange accents. it was such a sweet room for a sweet baby.

well now that our little hads is over two years old, her room has since been somewhat converted to a toddler room. the good news is, i still love it and i am pretty sure she does too. i think it is such a sweet room, full of color and lots of fun things for her to do. including one of her favorites, which is a little doll house that used to belong to her big sister, caroline. that doll house was caroline's very first doll house, given to her for her 2nd birthday from her aunt melissa. i had no idea then that there would ever be a little sister to pass it on to. so happy there is.

and for the sake of memory, because i love to look back on my blog as a sort of baby book for the girls, i am sharing pictures of what hadley's room looks like now. of course it will change again in the next month because we will be moving her to a twin bed from her toddler bed- can't wait for that.

here is her bed, which is the toddler bed from the ikea gulliver crib. i've been extremely happy with this crib and would definitely recommend it. it was the perfect price, the perfect color and shape, and serves it's purpose well.  hadley is playing with a cute letter puzzle. you can see on the wall by her white table is a little 'abc's' sheet that caroline made for her. she is always so thoughtful of her little sister.

the 'you are my sunshine' sign is one of my favorite things in her room. bought it at an art fair a few months ago from the vendor go jump in the lake. it's the perfect song for our little haddie gray.

wonder when we will give up the monitor? caroline was 4 before we did but i am thinking hads may be a little younger.

because of hadley's asthma issues, we do not have much by the way of carpet or curtains in her room. i try to keep it as dust free as we can just as a preventative measure. whether it really helps or not, i'm not sure. it is worth the try though.  i love the little wine box we use in her room for the extra book space. this girl has so many books! some that are new but of course many that were passed down from caroline. 

her cute little rocker was a 1st birthday present from her grandparents.

i think she has at least 5 different versions of cinderella between these three shelves.

here she is playing with what is probably her favorite toy in her room, the doll house. she plays with her disney princesses in the house.

 

her little coat hooks, which are hung right next to her door, are for sweaters, bags, and backpacks. you have to love her little polka dot rain boots, which she has never worn in actual rain but wears all over the house.

and that is it. pretty cute room for my active girl. hopefully i will have an update soon on her new bed. it is a classic white jenny lind. just have to get a mattress first.

wordless wednesday

crayon holder craftiness

i was in love with this boon bottle drying rack from the day i found out i was pregnant with hadley. i just thought it was the most stylish, yet full of purpose drying rack out there. it worked great for us with her dr. browns bottles. loved that you could toss it in the dishwasher too.

once we were out of the bottle phase, it just didn't really hold a purpose on our counter anymore. then for whatever reason one day while we were coloring, i realized that the drying rack would make the absolute perfect little crayon holder. it displays all of the colorful crayons perfectly and made it easy for hads to grab (and put back) a crayon of her choice with her newly gripping fingers. clean up time was made easier too. no more cramming all of the crayons back into the small box.

we definitely still use this now.

plus, i think the all of these pretty colors brighten up our little playroom.

labor day travel

i will catch up

i will catch up

i will catch up

i can not believe how far behind i have got on my blog. it is sad for me to see only a few wordless wednesdays over the last few months, rather than memory filled paragraphs on how the girls are doing and growing. let's hope i do better over the next coming months. i have so many fun things to blog about too! let's just let the suspense build with these two words... potty & training.

we got home last night after a 6.5 hour car ride, which included 1.5 hours of traffic. not moving, i want to jump out of this car and scream kind of traffic. families pulling over on the side of the road so kids could pee kind of traffic. normally the trip from st simons to our house would take us 5 hours. with a toddler, we do not need 5 extra minutes of car time, much less an extra hour and a half. all in all though, both girls did a great job of entertaining themselves. caroline made movies using her polly pockets, straws, and camera on her ipod touch. hadley watched probably one too many movies and ate one too many m&ms.  i even found myself picking up my book to read once or twice.

the weekend trip was a fun one. in the two full days we had there, we managed to squeeze in swimming at the beach, swimming at the pool, kite flying, bike & scooter riding, and lots of good eating.

this trip also included a first for hadley. she slept in the bottom bunk of the bunk beds in the girl's room. last trip (in june) we had her sleep on a toddler blow up mattress. so this was a big deal for her. i really think she loved waking up in the morning with her big sister in the room with her. if we didn't just buy her a cute twin jenny lind bed, i would have been tempted to put bunk beds in her room.

oh how we love us some st simons.

and thanks to my so sweet parents who kindly watched blue dog for us while we were gone.
thank you!