Seriously - What's going on?

I was outside weeding in the side yard this afternoon. Nora was with me. I'm minding my own business, pulling weeds, wishing I had watered the ground this morning so I could actually get the roots out and I hear a rustling. I look up, expecting to see Nora doing something near me. Nope. It was a snake slithering away from me with something in its mouth. I F.R.EAKED out! I yelled to Nora to get inside the fence and ran in there myself. The fence is only waist height so we stood on the other side and watched as it slithered to the opposite side of the air conditioner. I could see its tail and I threw a rock at it to see if it would move. Nope. So I carefully stepped outside of the gate and tip toed over to a better viewing area and saw that it was eating a frog. I had thoughts of sitting there watching it eat the frog, but I was a bit too panicked to do that - and Nora was inching her way out of the backyard, too, to see what was going on. As brilliant as I am, I realized that we could probably see it from the dining room window. Nora and I ran into the house and perched on the window sill and watched for 45 minutes as this thing inhaled the frog. I was fascinated. Nora - not so much:)

This is the snake eating the frog. You may have to click on the picture to get a closer view. The head and the frog blend in with the rocks.

Here is the snake after eating the frog. You can see a big bulge right after its head.

It was pretty fascinating to watch. The frog was still alive when we first got to the window. I didn't think the snake would be able to swallow the big, fat belly of the frog because the snakes head was so small, but obviously I don't know anything.

So I'm a bit worried about this snake business. First, I need to announce that I'm really sick of all of these animals coming to our house uninvited. Dog - okay. Fish - okay. Tadpoles - okay. Racoons - not so much. Snakes - definitely not so much. Second, I'm worried about letting the girls play outside. I don't know where this snake lives, don't know if it is poisonous (anyone I talk to says that we don't have poisonous snakes in Chicago, but this one was black with some red/orange on it - I thought red was a danger sign in nature). Even if it doesn't live in our backyard, it still traveled through the backyard to get to the side yard. What if it lives in the side yard? We have so many weeds that need to be pulled, now I can't do it. I don't think I can even walk through the grass on that side of the yard anymore (you know it will only be on THAT side of the yard, the other side of the yard is completely safe;). What if the girls are minding their own businesses and walk through some leaves that the snake is hiding in and it bites one of them?

We're having a barbecue on Memorial Day and I'm trying to get the backyard looking somewhat presentable. Oh and how about that? What if our new pet bites one of our guests? Oh I needed this situation like a hole in the head.

Our New House

Since our friendly critters came to visit, we have had to make some changes. We were intending to delay some of these things for 6 -18 months, however, our racoon friends changed those plans for us.

Background: Click http://spaces.msn.com/onsecondthot/blog/cns!3467FF50E246E710!1210.entry AND
http://spaces.msn.com/onsecondthot/blog/cns!3467FF50E246E710!1211.entry (sorry, I don't know how to do these link things where you say click here and it takes you where you want to go... anyone want to give me some hints on that?)

We had a few estimates done on our roof, which was in desperate need of replacing (we were going to wait until this fall). One of the roofers told me that the reason the animals were getting at the siding was because the shingles and the siding were rotting away where they meet at the corner of the roof and side of the house. So we could repair the hole, but without a new roof they would get at it again. Now I realize that this may be a roofer selling me a roof, however, we needed to do all of this work anyway - 6 months from now or now. We chose now so that we didn't have to worry about animals anymore.

We had estimates done on repairing the hole and repainting vs. replacing all of the siding. Cheaper to repair and repaint. In addition, if we repainted then we could rid ourselves of the nasty orange trim that Dave hated so much. Presenting:

Before:

After:

Before: *Whats in the window?

After: *check out the window - he's there again:)

I know these photos don't truly show the difference, so I'll try to explain a bit.

Before: The roof was a brownish orange color. The siding was an off white/cream with a yellow tone to it. The trim was burnt orange. The gutters were brown. The brick was very obviously orange.

After: The roof now has a brownish gray color. The siding is a brownish/beige. The trim is a brownish gray (smokey). the gutters match the trim. The brick now looks more brownish than orangish.

We are THRILLED! We feel like we live in a whole new house and are so happy with the results.

2

Our Monkey turned 2 today. Wow! *Cliche alert* It seems like just yesterday that I was pregnant with her and tearing paneling off of my family room walls and painting the ceiling at 36 weeks in an effort to start my labor. It seems like just yesterday that we celebrated her 1st birthday playing at the mall and eating cookies. She's such a big girl:)

Here's some of the things she did on her 2nd birthday:


Ate breakfast with Daddy and Nora and Baby Elmo (who was in Georgia's high chair when I came downstairs)


Colored on PAPER (not the walls) with a pen.


Played nicely with her sis.





Had a blue sucker for a treat.


Got upset when I tried to get a picture of her blue tongue.




Had birthday cupcakes after dinner


















26 obscure facts about our newest 2 year old monkey (thanks for the idea, Missy:):
1. She likes to draw with a pen on paper (as of last week... before paper it was walls - she's so advanced now that she's 2)
2. She just started sleeping in a toddler bed rather than a crib.
3. She takes a nap from 1:30-5:00pm every day that we are home (I know some of you are jealous)
4. She likes to draw on her own body with ink pen.
5. She likes to take baths with her big sis.
6. The way she says "Yea Georgia" is so adorable - she is sincerely proud of her sister every time Georgia rolls over.
7. She is progressing very quickly in terms of her speech therapy.
8. She will attempt to say almost any word I ask - unless it has the vowel sound e in it (long e).
9. She adores her daddy.
10. She prefers her mom to anyone else.
11. When we pull into the church parking lot she starts yelling, "Doug! Doug! Doug!"
12. She says Bye by saying, "maaah maaah" so I always have to stop and figure out if she's calling me or saying goodbye to the house as we pull out of the driveway
13. She rarely cries because she is hurt.
14. She rarely gets hurt.
15. She just started to get spanked.
16. She is destined to be spanked a lot:)
17. She climbs up the swingset and slides down the slide on her own.
18. She hated her baby swing as a baby.
19. NOW she climbs into the baby swing all the time and just swings and smiles.
20. She looooves to swing on the swing set and giggles the entire time.
21. She loves Elmo and the teletubbies.
22. When we're looking for her around the house we yell out, "LaLa" and her response is "Po" (the 2/4 of the teletubbies that she will name - the other two, Dipsy and Tinky Winky have that e sound in their names).
23. She loves speech therapy and her therapist, Miss Sue.
24. She eats the flesh of a pickle spear, but leaves the skin.
25. When she eats apples, she takes a bite and spits out the skin on the floor (lovely, eh?)
26. She just loves to go away. Every morning when she gets dressed she starts saying, "Go? Go?!" and brings her shoes to me and signs and says "Shoes" over and over. Every morning she ends up crying because we're not going away that very minute.

We didn't have a chance to really celebrate her birthday tonight because Dave had a meeting. We will be celebrating on Saturday night after church - more pictures to come, I'm sure:)

Singing through our year

Nora performed in her first spring musical tonight. She was wonderful and was obviously the best singer in her class AND I don't even have to tell you that she's definitely the cutest one in her class too - that goes without saying:)

In all seriousness, she did so well and I was beaming while my eyes filled with tears. She was so happy and so proud to have us visit her classroom and to see her show. I get really teary when I see her do something independent of us - independent of our family, of her role in our family. Nora is a little person and she has a life outside of our home and she is proud of who she is and what she does outside of our home - and I'm incredibly proud of her. I'm certain that every other parent in the room thought that his/her child was the cutest or the best one there, but they were all wrong - Nora most definitely wins every one of those contests:) I actually have very little knowledge of what the other kids were doing - I found myself so zoned in on her and what she was accomplishing, I didn't even see any other kids.

May I introduce to you... My Little Peek:


here we are waiting to begin - and most importantly, waving to mom and dad...


Look at how sweet Nora is. She's being quiet and waiting to start. I may not have paid much attention to the other kids, but I can tell you this - not many of them stood still like this. See - she's perfect:)

Watch the boy next to Nora, Alex. He's sweet.

He's sweet.

What?!!! What is this face?


Oh, wait. Here we go. Sweet boy once again.


She was so good! Not sure any other mother in that room was prouder than I was.

I just thought this one was hysterical with the kid in the orange crying. He cried the ENTIRE time. Not sure what he has against singing - maybe the little boy next to him is tone deaf.

6 Months

Doesn't it seem like I was just posting the 5 month pictures? It does to me...

Georgia is 6 months already!! I can't believe it. I am still amazed that she's here:) I love God's surprises.

Six Months means the following huge accomplishments:
* Being less rigid with the schedule. This mom is a schedule nazi for 6 months, then loosens up.
* Feeding schedule is now Breakfast, lunch, dinner and before bed. Instead of there being a feeding every 4 hours on the dot, she now eats around 8am, around 12:30ish, around 5/5:30 and around 8/8:30. This is a major accomplishment in my life - I don't feel as tied down as before.
* Feeding includes 6oz bottle, baby cereal and 1/2 jar of stage one baby food (we've gone through the vegetables and are starting the fruits now).
* Feeding herself ritz crackers and slices of bread.
* Sleep schedule is also less rigid - she naps from 10-12/12:15 and from 2ish-4:30ish or maybe we'll be crazy and she'll nap from 3-5. Who knows what mood may strike?? She is no longer taking that short evening nap - our vacation eliminated that one. And she goes to bed between 8/8:30, sleeps until 7/8am. See how loose I am with the schedule? I'm so proud of myself:)
* She consistently rolls from back to front. In fact, I can hardly get her to stay on her back. However, she doesn't consistently roll from front to back (although she is able to) and she ends up very unhappy after just a couple of minutes of being on her tummy. Still does not like extended tummy time.
* She is no longer nursing as of 2 days ago. She was very easy to wean and is doing just fine with the situation.
* She sits on her own for very short periods of time. Today she sat the longest - about 5-6 minutes - before she fell over.
* She yells when she sees her bottle or her crackers. She now knows what she wants lets us know.
* She LOVES her sisters (who, by the way, fight over who gets to play with her). She laughs at them and watches everything they do. I cannot feed her while anyone else is in the room because she gets too distracted.
* She LOVES her daddy and watches every move he makes and gives him HUGE smiles when he walks in the room (and of course his heart melts every time).
* She LOVES her Guy and tries to pet him and pull his hair. She also follows his every move.
* She likes to stroke my hair when I'm holding her over my shoulder, then ends up pulling it.
* She reaches for her sisters' hair (I try to direct her to Ryann's head since Ryann has done her share of pulling Nora's hair).
* She is fascinated by my mouth and puts her hands in it when she is facing me.
* She is fascinated by her own hands and I often catch her moving them in front of her eyes so she can look at them a little closer.
* She likes her exersaucer and is happy to play in it for extended periods of time (maybe 20 minutes at most... but thats long enough to get dinner on the table).
* She is now too big and too interested to sit in her bouncy seat.
* She loves taking a bath and being slathered with lotion afterward.
* She is still in 3-6 month clothing, but will be moving to 6-9 month pajamas soon.
* She is very interested in what is going on around her when we are in public. We tood her to church last night and she just watched everyone and smiled at everyone. While we were at Disney we rarely heard a peep from her because she was so fascinated with all that was going on. She takes it all in with a big smile on her face!
* She still loves her mom the most and makes it very clear when I walk into a room she would rather I hold her than whoever has her at the time.

We're at it again

If you recall, at the end of March we were doing breathing treatments for 3 little girls with pneumonia. It is now the beginning/middle of May and we're back to the breathing treatments for 2/3 of the small people in our family. What is the deal with this???

Everyone except me and Dave's mom got sick while we were in Florida. Nora, then Dave, then Ryann, then Dave's dad, then Georgia. It has been this annoying, lingering cold that no one can seem to completely shake. Dave said last night that it doesn't seem to get any better - but it doesn't seem to get any worse. We had one or two bad days/nights with Nora, but she has been coping pretty well. It started at the end of the week with Ryann and Georgia so we figured we would let it run its course like it did with Nora. Yesterday morning I had had enough. Ryann was such a miserable soul - not miserable like she was sick (other than a constant runny nose, you'd never know she was sick - and if you know Ryann, you know that a runny nose is not an unusual occurance for her), miserable like she was so crabby and unbearably mommy-dependent that I just couldn't take it any more. I took them to the doctor last night and the results are in:

Ryann - lungs are not clear, needs breathing treatments every 4 hours
- One ear in fection, needs two antibiotics
Georgia - lungs are not clear, but not as bad as Ryann's, needs breathing treatments 2-3 times each day
- two ear infections, needs one antibiotic
Nora - lungs are clear, needs no medication

So we're back at it. I'm very excited about this. I will post a description of our visit to the doctor later this morning... it was fun.

Random Catch-ups

We've been gone - Disney as a matter of fact. We got back on Friday and had a busy weekend and I spent yesterday catching my breath from being on vacation. I hate this phrase: "I need a vacation from my vacation." However, I do believe I need a recovery facility and a 28 day program. So h-anyways, here are some random catch up items...

New Name -
I renamed the blog. On Second Tho't had a particular meaning for me and a couple of people, however, I decided that it probably didn't make much sense. The new name popped into my head this afternoon and because I am the adventurous, crazy person that I am, I immediately changed it. Don't ever accuse me of not being spontaneous or flexible:)

Georgia's Heart -
When Georgia was born her pediatrician, Dr. Beautiful, heard a heart murmur during his newborn check. He ordered a cardiology consultation. The cardiologist determined she had a hole in her heart, but it was the type of hole that would likely close on its own and he ordered a 6 month follow up appointment. She had her follow up appointment two weeks ago and the hole has closed!!! Yeah! While the cardiologist made it clear that the hole was nothing to be too concerned about, I still prayed over her every night that God would close that tiny hole. He did and we're very, very thankful.

Tadpoles -
Remember when I directed all correspondance for me to be mailed to the House of Death? Uh, yeah - double that. Both tadpoles died quite a while ago and we threw the whole habitat away. Nora has not yet noticed, but I'm a little ticked about it - I wanted to see a tadpole turn into a frog, darnit. Somehow we have managed to keep the dog alive for 6 years... have no idea why we're so lucky;)

LOST -
I am completely lost on this one. Don't know why Michael shot Anna Lucia. Don't know why he shot Libby. Don't know why Libby was at the same treatment facility as Hurley and if she remembers him. Don't know why Anna Lucia and Sawyer did it. Don't know if Anna Lucia knew that Jack's dad was Jack's dad when she was hitting on Jack in the airport bar. Don't know what Locke's deal is. And Henry really creeps me out. And WHERE IS CHARLIE? What happened to Charlie? First he's stealing the virgin Mary, we don't know if he's back on drugs or not and then he's helping Mr. Eko build a temple and doesn't have time to talk to Hurley and now where is he? And where did that food drop come from? If there was a food drop, why didn't the plane see that there were people on the island? I'm so confused on this show.

American Idol -
Eliot - go away
Taylor - good, somewhat annoying
Katherine - Very pretty, don't know my opinion on her yet
Chris - yummy

Survivor -
I like Terry. I want him to win because he is the single most dominating player I've seen and I like him. I do NOT understand, though, why Danielle has such a hissy fit about him. Why does she dislike him so much? I do not like Aras. I like Cirie and I'm going to miss Shane's psychotic episodes. Annoying but humorous they were. I liked Austin.

Friends -
Do you have friends that just know you? Doesn't that make you feel good? One such friend in my life gave me the book, Gift from the Sea, for my birthday. I finally had a chance to read some of it while on vacation and I just want to annouce - It is the perfect book for me. Says things perfectly. Articulates my feelings very well and I am going to memorize some passages so I can articulate my feelings better. AND it just feels good to know that other people feel the same way I do and that I'm not crazy for feeling that way. I will expand more at a later date, lets just say... thank you, you know who you are and I love you:)

Disney/Florida -
As a whole, Disney was a good time. There were, however, several bad, bad moments. Lets review:
*Ryann does not like ANY life-sized animal/character. Not the Easter Bunny (who was not at Disney, by the way, but we should have learned our lesson at the easter brunch), not Winnie the Pooh, not Tigger. NO ONE.
*Do NOT under any circumstance take a rest in front of a little stand that sells plastic crappy toys when you are with a 4 year old.
*Do NOT bring your scared 2 year old onto the Dumbo ride and assume that once it gets going she'll be fine. It is kind of embarassing to have the ride stopped because she is throwing a fit and her foot came out of the seat belt...
*Do NOT assume that when you're in line to see Minnie Mouse, Goofy, and Pluto with your husband, your 4 year old, your 2 year old and your 6 month old that when hubby leaves to change the baby's diaper that he will return to help you with the other two. Thanks a lot:)
*Do NOT assume that since the kids were okay on the plane on the way there that they will be okay on the plane on the way home.
*When the sign at Mission to Space (Epcot) warns you that if you don't like dark, enclosed spaces you should not go on this ride, and the video warns you of the same thing - REMEMBER THAT YOU DON'T LIKE DARK, ENCLOSED SPACES and leave the ride immediately.

There were many, many good moments/memories:
*All three kids were AWESOME on the 2 plane rides out there.
*We got to feed sting rays and dolphins and Nora pet the sting rays
*Nora LOVED meeting the disney characters and giving them hugs. The look of awe in her face was priceless.
*Nora became much more adventurous in the pool.
*Ryann also became a little more adventurous in the pool.
*The look on Nora's face when she saw the afternoon parade, met Cinderella and watched the light parade was something I will never forget and made the entire trip and the money we spent worthwhile.
*Its A Small World used the be the most annoying ride on the planet until I saw it through Nora's and Ryann's eyes
*The food at the character brunch was so good, I could have eaten all day.
*The fireworks at night were awesome!
*Ryann used sign language to communicate - without me prompting her.
*Ryann picked up a few more words throughout the week.
*We got to play cards and hang out with other adults.
*Dave and I both got a little "Ryann sleeping on my shoulder" time. That hasn't happened in a really long time.
*Nora and Ryann l.o.v.e.d the dolphin show at SeaWorld. So did I.
*No one (not even me) got sunburned.
*I got through the Mission to Space ride - had a panic attack during most of it, but I lived to tell about it.
*Our girls were so incredibly cute all week even though they were sooooo tired.

And one note for everyone:
If a Disney employee knocks your 2 year old daughter over, don't settle for the free ice cream cone that he will offer you - wait until he offers any item under $25:)

Michelle - If you CAN read this, let me know:)