Happy Birthday, Daddy

Jim hits the big 3-1 today. Happy 31st Birthday, Daddy!

We celebrated yesterday with a couple of friends and Jim's favorite dinner: Round Steak and Mashed Potatoes. (Think 'salisbury steak' or any kind of steak cooked in brown gravy, and you'll get the idea.) We topped it off with a round of "Happy Birthday, Cha-Cha-Cha" sung by Meg and some DQ ice cream cake. Not a big blow out, but a nice birthday, just the same.

Happy Birthday, Daddy! We love you . . . have a good week in Charlotte, and we will see you when you get home.

Favorite Photo Friday

Kate Allison, Marietta GA, Feb 2009

I'm working on the picture re-org at our house, and I came across this one of Kate taken just about one year ago. I had forgotten about it . . . and how cute her little sweet-potato covered face was!

Sometimes I feel like I don't talk enough about Kate on the blog . . . you may even have noticed yourself. Kate may not be my topics of conversation daily, but she is certainly not forgotten around here. She is my baby . . . and the more we think we are going to stay a family of four permanently, the more I realize that she is growing up way to fast. I feel like she's grown up in about 1/2 the time Meg has . . . some of that is just due to the fleeting nature of time, and some of it is due to the fact that she has an older sister to help her hit some baby milestones a little quicker than a first born might.

Case in point: talking. I know you've heard me say it many times already -- but Kate is talking so much earlier than Meg did. She's already putting two words together ("Daddy Bye Bye" and "I Kate" and "I Coming" are just a few mini-sentences she's spouting right now). She jabbers all the time . . . and now she and Meg are even talking to one another, something I've anticipated since Kate first came into our family.

Kate can eat with a spoon and fork like any big kid . . . because she eyes her sister at the table and wants to be just like her. She is rapidly moving up and down stairs with no assistance at 19 months in an effort to keep up with Meg. And she desperately wants to be able to brush her own teeth and hair like Meg does. It's Monkey see, Monkey do at our house . . . constantly.

I just wish my baby Monkey would not do so much so young. She's likely to be my baby forever . . . and I want her to stay baby forever.

I'm glad I have these darling photos to remember a time when Kate truly was a baby. A sweet potato covered 7 month old that I couldn't get enough of. And I still can't get enough of her now.

(As an unrelated side note -- I feel like I offended people with my comment about my birthday wishes from facebook friends, written about in a previuos blog. I was not saying I didn't appreciate the "Happy Birthdays" -- I was just being grouchy. And sad that in this day and age your birthday wishes must be found on-line. That's all. It was nothing personal directed at any specific person, I promise.)

What Keeps Me From Blogging

The following events in the Dahlby household have kept me from blogging . . . pretty much all month long.

-- We were gone for the first 4 days of January . . . and the last 6 days of December . . . so it took me about a week just to get caught up at my house. The place was a wreck. But it's not any more . . . well, it's not as much of a wreck. I did clean up Christmas. Some rudimentary cleaning has been done. But then I got the bright idea to work on changing out some of my framed photos . . . and that lead me to rearrange some of my photo arrangements on my walls . . . which means I need to get out touch up paint for newly exposed holes . . . and decide which pictures should go where . . . so it looks like a framing store exploded in my office right now. A project I will finish in the next week or two (I hope). Like I said, it's not as much of a wreck around here as it was about 10 days ago.

-- Oh, yes. And we had a 'snow day' in the middle of my trying to recover and get the house in order. I was so NOT happy to see the snow here in Georgia two Fridays ago! The girls did not go to school . . . so I lost an entire morning I had hoped to devote to claiming back my house. At least the dusting of snow was pretty.

-- Kate got a stomach flu. She threw up for 2 days. Then I got it. Then Meg got it. 5 days later, we were on the mend.

-- Lots and LOTS of laundry generated by aforementioned stomach flu. Isn't that the PITS of a stomach bug? Not only do you have all the bodily fluids to deal with, but stinky laundry piles up quicker than you can imagine. The whole time we were sick, I listened to the constant drone of the washer/dryer.

-- Swimming lessons, Dance class, scheduling preschool conferences, scheduling dentist appointments, scheduling OBGYN appts (just a check up, calm down!), scheduling appointments with my therapist. Scheduling datenights for Jim and I, arranging for babysitters, rescheduling things that get put off due to stomach flus and the like. In other words, normal, day to day life.

-- Took Meg to "Pigtails and Crewcuts" and whacked off her hair. It was long and stringy . . . and, though I desperately would love to have a little girl with long, flowing hair, I got tired of fighting Meg daily to let me fix it. If SHE doesn't want to wear pigtails and braids, then what is the point in having long hair? It looks darling short, anyway.

I turned 32. Whoohoo. Happy Birthday. Not exciting at all, really. Hardly anyone called, and I got one card in the mail. Jim took me to a really great dinner at 'Canoe' here in Atlanta, which I enjoyed very much. And then it was January 12th, and another birthday had come and gone.

-- I got to take Meg to see "Annie" at the Fox Theatre, my birthday gift from her (and Jim). The timing of the "Annie" outing fell right in the middle of our stomach flu -- but thank God neither she nor I were sick for the 4-5 hours of our event. (I got sick later that night, and Meg took it on the following morning.) Meg LOVED it . . . and I will admit it was something of a 'dream come true' for me. I always adored Aileen Quinn singing "Tomorrow" on the film version of this story . . . and as a little girl, I watched it so many times, I think I had convinced myself that I wanted to BE an orphan like Annie. To have my little girl loving the same songs as I did when I was young -- it is priceless. Taking her to see "Annie" was fantastic. The only sad part was when I had to put my hand over her mouth to keep her from singing along . . . and no, I'm not kidding. She was totally belting out "Tomorrow" -- right along with the little actress on stage -- until (after asking her several times to quiet down) I finally had to use my hand to mute her. She was a little put out by it because she desperately wanted to sing along. How I love my Meg!

-- Arguing with my dad. That has taken up a lot of my January. I know that I don't talk about it much -- at all, really -- but my dad and I don't always get along. We bicker about all kinds of things . . . mostly things that I don't want to address here. We go through phases where we are the best of friends . . . then something happens and we can't seem to see eye to eye on anything. We are in one of those bad spots right now. Just thinking about it makes me mad/angry/sad/upset/fed up. You would think that with everything we have been through in the last 9 months, we would not have a single thing to be angry about . . . that we'd just feel lucky to still have each other. But it's just not that way.

-- Jim's birthday is coming up next week, so I've been trying to get some stuff together for that. Planned a little surprise for him, and I'm sending him and Meg to a Georgia Tech basketball game in a few weeks. I like the idea of doing 'dates' with our girls for our birthdays. I sure enjoyed my "Annie" date, and I hope Jim enjoys the outing to the game.

-- New babies. Meet Olivia and Hunter, born to friends of ours in late December. If you know them, you'll be getting their announcements in the mail sometime soon . . . I'm working on them in my 'free' time :)

-- And last, but not least, a general feeling of . . . well . . . discontent. Blah. I don't know why, but I'm in one of my funks again. It's like I'm waiting for the next shoe to drop, the next big thing to happen. I can't explain it. Jim is gone and will be gone a lot for the next several months. Hell, I should just quit kidding myself and say that he's always going to be gone a lot. I'm lonely. I'm not working, which is OK with me . . . but I find myself bored sometimes. Motherhood is great -- but it can be a pretty boring occupation at times.

Anyway -- for whatever reason -- this 'funk' has me staying home, watching TV, reading magazines, and being a complete bum. I don't want to be on the computer, so I don't feel like blogging. I didn't even log on to Facebook last week -- not even to see my 'happy birthday' wishes (from a bunch of people who would not have remembered my birthday if it weren't for Facebook, anyway). I have not been making plans with anyone because I get so tired of having to always cancel plans when someone get sick, my dad needs me, or Jim's travel schedule changes. So, the January Funk has settled in. I hope it's short-lived.

And that, my friends, is just a tidbit of what keeps me from blogging.

Snow Days

Look at all the snow we got in Georgia on Thursday!

Just kidding . . .

No, no. Not talking about the snow here in Georgia the other day. I have a few minutes to post a few pictures from our Snowy Adventures in the midwest last week. You'll see what I meant in my last post when I said the snow here was 'lack-luster' for us . . . we had a blast sledding and building snowmen in somewhere around a foot of snow back in Kansas just over one week ago.

Hope you like the pictures of our snow bunnies. Who does not love to see two little girls all bundled up and enjoying the cold?

The Event of the Week

Still behind on just about everything . . .

But I had to stop for a minute and update on one big event this week: Meg's swimming lessons.

Her first of many true, real (I'm NOT getting in the water with her!) swim lessons began this Wednesday. Meg is in a class of 4, set to meet weekly for 30 minutes. Not much, but enough to get her EXCITED about learning to swim . . . which is more than I can say for our last attempt at teaching her this much-needed life skill.

We tried swimming lessons back last summer. I had it in my head that weekly swim lessons would be a big part of our summer, and I had it in my head that Meg would be a total fish by the summer's end. Um, didn't happen. As you mom's out there know . . . what you plan for your kid and what they actually go along with can be two VERY different things. Meg was 10 minutes in to her first lesson when she declared, "I'm all done." She refused to participate . . . and after another failed attempt at a lesson one week later, I decided that Meg was (a) not ready OR (b) just NOT going to do it. Either way, lessons we by the wayside well before the 4th of July.

Fast forward to December, and I sprang the idea of swimming lessons on Meg once again. I feel very strongly that she DOES need to learn how to swim -- and the younger, the better. I was )(am?) bound and determined to get her in the water this winter so that we can overcome this obstacle well before bathing suit season comes back around. I threw the idea of swimming in an indoor pool her way, reminding her how big girls can swim. And, "Oh! Won't it be nice if you can jump in and slide all by your self next summer?!"

This time, to my delight, Meg was all up for swim class.

What did it take? A little more than just the "be a big girl" motivating speech, I will admit. Our preschool buddy, Niko, decided to join us . . . and once Meg knew that Niko was in her swim class, she was totally game. Sure, she'd like to be a 'big girl' by the summer . . . but spending time playing in the pool with her good buddy was really what got her to bite on the idea.

Hey, whatever it takes.

Our first lesson was this week, and it went -- forgive me, I can't resist -- swimmingly. Meg participated 100%, jumped in, face in the water, swam the length of the polo solo (with back float), and got to go down the slide as a reward.

And her proud mommy watched with a smile from the benches that lined the sauna-like indoor swimming facility.

Once again, the event of the week: Meg gets one step closer to swimming! Willingly -- and she liked it! Next week's challenge: get Kate to STOP throwing food at the table. That one may prove to be much, much tougher.

PS -- In other news of the week -- it did snow here yesterday. Many think THAT was the event of the week. But, since we Dahlbys just got back from 9 days in some serious, mammoth snow, the dusting GA got on Thursday night was a little lack-luster for us. Not saying that I don't love the Georgia snow . . . I just needed today to clean up and recover from everything, and instead -- because of the "snow" -- I had BOTH girls home on what should have been a school day!

Oh, well. The best laid plans, right?

Just One

I lied . . . just one picture of the bundled Dahlby girls to hold you over :)

Back in the 'Hampton

Miss me?

We returned yesterday from a NINE day stint in the Midwest. In our week + , we hit Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas. It was a whirlwind of Dahlby-fied fun, and our girls enjoyed every minute with their Midwest relatives.

Jim and I also enjoyed nine days together . . . and the help of lots of Nanas, Papa, Aunts, and Uncles who were always willing to entertain/care for our kiddos.

I know I've been absent from the blog . . . and, well, I've been absent from a lot of things. It's like we hit December 17th -- the day of Meg's preschool program -- and my life just went on fast-forward. I don't know how things just kept going . . . and going . . . and there was nothing I could do to slow it down. I could barely keep up. We went here and there, we did this and that . . . and I scarcely had time to take a breath! All kinds of things went to the side -- including my entire computer life. If I owe you an email or something -- I promise I'll get to it.

I also owe someone a whole set of newborn pictures and two sets of announcements . . . here we are in January, and I stukk don't feel like the 'fast-forward' is letting up.

The holidays were hectic -- that's all I'm saying. Life with 2 kids is hectic enough. But when you pile on loads of mistletoe, Santa Claus, and traveling, life can take on a 'life' of it's own.

(Does that even make sense? I hope you know what I'm trying to say.)

Anyway.

Things have not slowed down since we returned to town. My house was left in total disarray . . . so the (hugely present) Type A in me when crazy yesterday when we got back home. I felt I had to clean and organize everything . . . or at least get some sort of order back in the house before Jim took off again very early this cold, cold morning. We were up until 1am cleaning and rearranging . . . and we've only just begun. My house now looks like a cross between Christmas and what it looked like when we were moving in. Boxes everywhere, junk in piles . . . and bare spots where holiday is gone by 'year-round' has not yet been returned. No, you cannot come over. I won't be having guests any time soon.

Deep breath. *Sigh* The house is a mess -- what a mess you can make cleaning up! -- but it will eventually return to normal. And when it does, we will have all kinds of new little gadgets and gifities we got for Christmas mixed in with our old stuff. That is something to look forward to.

Anyway.

Not only did I return to a messy homestead, but I also received news that a relative of mine fighting cancer has taken a turn for the worse. I won't elaborate out of respect for my family and their thoughts on Internet journaling . . . but it is something that is weighing heavily on me and is preoccupying my thoughts. A trip (or more) to Newnan is planned for this week. I love my family and I can't let more days slip by without visiting them in their time of need.

Sometimes, when it rains, it pours. I feel like our family has had a lot of that lately.

Anyway.

I'm supposed to be doing laundry, finishing the dishes, and watching Georgia Tech's bowl game right now. I'd love to upload pictures of the girls sledding and building their snowman ("Frosty" he was named -- of course!), but that will have to wait for another day. Only time enough to let you know that we are well -- too busy -- and will catch up soon.