‘graciecakes’

Yes, yes, I haven’t written in over a  month again.  Truly, not because of any hangups or anything legitimate… it’s more like I kind-of forgot that I had a blog for a while.  We’ve been busy around here and I’ve missed about a dozen events and milestones.   Here’s my attempt to catch up!

Let’s begin with Halloween 2009.

This was the first year that Sarah really “got” Halloween.  After looking through countless catalogs, she had her mind set on being a witch and so it was.  After looking through countless catalogs, we ended up picking out an adorable  “fairy-tale” witch costume from an on-line store called; buycostumes.com.   We tried it on the minute it arrived at our door and didn’t take it off until Halloween.

She may have been dressed like a witch, but she still looked like an angel.

Olivia, on the other hand, really didn’t get the gist of Halloween this year, but did and said whatever Sarah did and said.  This year I picked out her costume and she was the most adorable little bumblebee, if I say so myself!

We celebrated Halloween twice this year.  The Sunday before Halloween, we marched in Aunt Margie and Uncle Jeff’s community parade and then went back to their cousins house for a party.  The following Saturday was Halloween Day and we had the entire family back to our house to celebrate the day.  And literally the whole family went trick or treating around our neighborhood and then back to our house for some pizza and snacks.  Needless to say, Sarah and Olivia readily figured out what the words “trick or treat” meant and absolutely LOVED getting and especially eating the candy they received.  One thing that did surprise me was that the older kids only wanted to trick or treat around the corner.  They were too lazy to go any further and really didn’t care that much about how much candy they got.  My how times have changed since I was a kid!  Here’s some pictures of all the cousins!

Lily and Jackson as Mickey and Minnie Mouse!

Alex as some sort of “scary guy” and Jake as a “Ninja Master”!

Luke as a firefighter!

Well, I finally did it.  Sarah is just shy of three years old and she had her first haircut today.  I’ll be honest and tell you that the reason I did not get her haircut up untill this point is that Sarah has my dream hair!  She has the softest, thickest and most beautiful long hair that I have always dreamed of having myself.  It is light brown with beautiful long blonde streaks running through it.  (I have to pay the big bucks to get my hair that color:)  It even has little  ringlet curls at the ends.  The only reason I decided to get it cut today, was that Donna, the woman who has been cutting Nana’s hair for years, was coming to her house for a cut and I was feeling like a neglectful Mother for not cutting your hair in three years!!! 

I only hope a few curls will remain!

 Now, anyone who knows Livi, knows that she wasn’t about to be left out of the action.  Today was actually Livi’s 2nd haircut!   The one with the least amount of hair has had two cuts.  It is a very good thing Livi is the one who doesn’t have a long mane because she hates having her hair combed, and most of the time, refuses to leave a clip in.  Livi also has beautiful brown, curly hair.  However, there’s not much of it.  Unfortuately, she takes right after her Mother.

Lots of curls left

Too cute!

Tonight we celebrated Yom Kippur with Grandma, Grandpa, Grandma Ida and “Grandma” Harriet.  Grandma Ida was in for a three week visit to celebrate her 85th birthday.  As you know, you don’t really have a Grandma Harriet   She is one of Grandma’s friends and we kind of just adopted her!  She’s 89 years old and I think she has more spunk than your own Mom!!!  Tonight, Dad had one of his favorite meals.  Bagels, lox, cream cheese, white fish salad and delicious herring. 

Anyway, upon arrival home, you and your sister decided on your own to get yourselves “comfy and cozy” on the couch.  You covered yourselves with a blanket and read a book together.  After your Dad and I were done bringing in all of the left-overs and bags, we found you two snuggled together.  Just one of those moments not to be forgotton!

 We took a trip to TOY’S-R-US yesterday because I promised the girls prizes for Sarah’s successful trips to the potty.  Sarah has been using the potty for “#2 only”  for five days now.   “Potty Time” comes with A LOT of crying.  But, she no longer wants to go in her diaper and stands in the corner and cries anyway.  So, I figure, we might as well make an attempt to go from “diaper” to “wiper”!

Anyway, here’s the guitar Sarah choose for her reward.  I think she’s a natural. 

Olivia loves the guitar as well.  But, I should tell you that my little princess, Olivia, choose a big dinosaur as her prize.  No, she did not go on the potty, but she’s always there in the bathroom to root Sarah on and give her a hug! 

Here’s the dinosaur Olivia choose!

Do you see this precious face?

And this one?

This precious, baby face is the one that makes me ABSOLUTELY certain that having two children is just perfect!

This morning started out great.  Everyone in the house slept until almost 7:00 a.m., which is record time around these parts of Massapequa.  We all got up, played with some toys, ate breakfast and got dressed.  Well, most of us stayed dressed.  For the past week or so, I think Olivia has decided that she would prefer living in a nudist camp.  I spend most of my days putting on her clothes and she spends her days taking them off.  Now, if it’s not too cold in the house, I’ll just leave her with just her diaper on and hope that she doesn’t remove that.  However, we do leave the house occasionally and then the attempt to re-dress Olivia commences again. 

This morning, it was a particularly hot summer day and we put the air conditioner on and it was quite chilly in the house, so I insisted that she keep some of her clothing on.  Olivia had other ideas.  She removed her shirt at least a dozen times.  Nothing unusual….except for the sudden crying and screaming that lasted about 30 minutes.  One minute she was fine, the next minute we were debating whether or not to take her to the emergency room.  Usually, with Olivia, you can kiss the boo-boo and she is miraculously healed. 

But today was a different story. 

She cried and clung to both Dave and I for at least a half an hour.  Which is complete unlike Olivia!  Occasionally, she would scream and flail her legs, which got me even more nervous.  Neither of us could figure out what was wrong.  Logically it seemed as if she might have hurt her neck pulling her shirt off or was having terrible gas pains.  I really had no way of being sure what the problem was and I was rendered helpless.  Which, for a mother, is possibly the worst feeling to have.  I ended up taking her out of her Dad’s arms, against her wishes and brought her upstairs to rock her.  She asked to lay down in her crib and promptly fell asleep.  When she woke up, she lay in her crib singing, “Where is thumb-kin?”   Now, I wanted to render her helpless….just kidding….or not :o)

She came downstairs and seemed fine.  Within the next five minutes she pointed to her neck again and said, “boo-boo” and this time I wasn’t taking any chances.  We re-dressed her, AGAIN and piled everyone into the car for an emergency trip to the doctor.  Now, as all children and cars are alike, once you bring them in for service, you cannot find anything wrong with them.  On the way to the doctor, Olivia was magically cured.  She ate three lollipops in the office waiting room and was as happy as could be.   

In the end, the doctor thought her throat looked red which is why he thought she was pointing to her neck and saying, “boo-boo.”  We, on the other hand, knew that her throat was red due to the fact that she had done so much crying and then ate a purple, pink and white lollipop before being examined. 

Dave and I noticed throughout the day that Olivia had a hard time turning her head to the left.  She definitely strained her neck and with a little motrin both her and Mommy would feel better by the next day. 

In conclusion, I have made up mind that I am completely content with my two healthy and beautiful little girls and any linguring thoughts of having a third child have disappeared. 

Here’s Daddy and Livi after the visit to the doctor’s office.  Cute, isn’t she!!!

Written by Dad…

So Mommy is letting me take a crack at updating Gracie cakes, I’m really excited.  The day we wanted to talk about was last Friday August 7th 2009.  It was another typical day for me, working from home instead of commuting to Jersey City like I do the rest of the week.  I always love days at home because I’m close to my 3 favorite girls in the whole wide world (as I love to say to Sarah & Livi.)  It was a gorgeous summer day, low 80’s, no clouds, absolutely one of those great weather days.  I was unhappy at first having to work all day when I would much rather have spent the day doing fun things with the girls.  Once 5 O’Clock rolled around I was anxious to get outside and do something fun before the day was gone forever.  The girls had an early dinner so I suggested a trip to the beach just for a little outdoor fun in the sand.  The girls loved it!!  They took off their shoes, played in the sand, made little sandcastles with a bucket that really resembled a big pile of wet sand, but they were ecstatic just the same.  They kept walking around ( and away from us from time to time) just to explore a little.  After some fun in the sand, we put them in their strollers and took a short walk on the boardwalk & got them some ice cream, which they also loved!! (big surprise!!) As we strolled back towards the car they watched the other people walking/jogging on the boardwalk, spotted the playground which we craftily avoided their immediate “Can we go on the swing/slide” questions with the parental standard “sorry, its getting dark & time for the swing/slide to go night night :)”  On the way they were absolutely giddy in their car seats making all kinds of funny gutteral noises & cracking each other up.  It was all I could do to keep from laughing and running the car off the road.  All in all, it was the best 2 hours of my day.  They may not remember it when they get older, but its one I won’t forget.   

It figures that it would rain the day Grandma and Grandpa brought Sarah her first tricycle.  But you’d never know that she was upset. 

I knew that she was getting the tricycle today, so I went out earlier and bought her a helmet which she called a “hat” and walked around with it on her head the entire day.  She was a little confused why she didn’t get the bike to go with the hat, but I assured her that I would go to the store later to get one. 

 Later in the afternoon, she was extremely surprised to Grandpa walking in with a new bike for her!!    With some sunny days and a little practice, I’m sure she’ll be peddling around the block in no time.

               Here’s a picture of Livi with her new “bike”!

Well, we’re back from another trip to Dellwood Acres, PA.  This is Mom’s 26th year, Dad’s 5th year, Sarah’s 3rd year and Livi’s 2nd year!  We were nervous about going this time around because we weren’t sure how we would manage with a 1 and a 2 year old, but it turned out to be a wonderful, fun-filled time for everyone! 

How to describe Dellwood Acres?  Hmmmm……

Well, to begin with, I would say that it’s a wonderful place to vacation if you enjoy simplicity; which I think everyone could use a little of now and again.  It’s a throw back to earlier times when people created their own entertainment.  There are no video games, tv’s or computers and I would say telephones, but now a days everyone has a cell phone which they can use.  The cabins are nestled in between two beautiful lakes.  Although, my children will only ever know of one lake since I’m scared of the bear that walks around near the bottom lake:)   There’s a recreation room, but again, you must create your own recreation.  There is also a rickety, broken down, old as the ages bowling alley in which you set up your own pins, send the ball back down a make shift ramp and then bowl with a bowling ball the size of a small cantelope.   One would think that no one would use it, but Sarah and the other little kids LOVED it and asked to bowl several times a day.   There is a beautiful pool, which despite the 80 degree temperatures is always too cold to swim in.  There are also a few swings, a slide and a couple of little toy ponies to ride.  It may not sound like much, but it is always more than enough.  With the entire Defendini/Wagner family there to play with at any given moment, you realize quickly that you don’t miss all the conveniences of home.  And when it’s time leave, no one wants to go!  Most of all, the adults. 

This year Sarah and Olivia slept in separate “pack-n-plays” but in the same room.  I can’t tell you how cute the two girls were.  Olivia kept Sarah awake each night an additional hour because she would not stop talking and singing.  The song of choice this year for Olivia was “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”!  She sang the song beautifully for an 18 month old, however the only problem with her rendition was that Old MacDonald only ever had a cow.  And she sang it over and over and over and over….   Sarah would respond by saying, “Olivia, just go to sleep!”  And then both girls would crack up.  When they got tired enough, they would check to see that I was still in the other room and then call me in to pick up “paci’s” that fell on the floor or just to get some more kisses, which I was more than happy to give until I was called in for the 100th time!  Then both were tucked in and firmly told to go to sleep or else!

Here’s some of my favorite pictures taken this year. 

Luke and Sarah (One of my favorite pictures of the year!)

Love!

Sisters!

Nana and her Darling!

Jackson and Lily's first Dellwood!

After much prompting to get Sarah in the pool, you couldn't get her out!

Getting all "dolled" up for the pool!

Pure Happiness!

Yesterday, Sarah discovered her jewlery box.  She opened the box to discover a twirling ballerina.  It was as if she had opened our front door and saw Cinderella’s Castle in our front yard.  Her smile lit up the room and she said to me, “Mom, isn’t she just beautiful!”  Then she kissed her.  

Fast forward one day.  Olivia spotted the same jewlery box, took one look at the ballerina and ripped right out of the box!!!!   Not exactly the same reaction.  Sarah was quick to discipline Olivia, rip the ballerina out of her hands and return her to her rightful spot.

This is the first post in a couple of weeks. Don’t ask me  how, but I herniated a couple of discs in my neck and I’m just now feeling well enough to sit at the computer and write again.