Current Snaps

 

 

 

The picture at the bottom of the post, of the frog pin, was mine when I was Maggie’s age. I loved staring at it as a child. It was attached to a purse of mine that my mom made for me as a youngster and hung in my bedroom for years and years. Somehow the pin ended up in our bathroom here at HBHQ and has been in a drawer kicking around. A few days ago Maggie discovered it and wore it with pride for Valentines’s day. Barry and I found a balloon of a huge frog at the grocery store and bought it for her because she loved the pin so much. We’d been hiding the balloon in a closet waiting for Valentine’s day to come.

We’d put the balloon next to the fridge for Maggie to find in the morning/middle of the night when she gets up to get her cup of milk, but weren’t sure what to expect with her reaction to the discovery. Well, in the night/early in the morning (its all about perspective) she climbed into bed and announced “Daddy got me a frog ballooon like my pin and it’s beautiful.” Then she chugged her cup of milk and fell back to sleep. That dang frog balloon has been smooched on by all of us and dragged around the house like a new-found toy. Barry also revived a game “Balloon Bop” from his childhood and we’ve all been playing together.

Audrey has crawled over to me and has now put her hands up my shirt and is pinching that awkward area of my side muffin top. I better go. By the way, Audrey is standing up on her own, and walks  with a push cart, but has NO interest in taking steps independently.

Pinch.

Pinch. Pinch.


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Rollin’, Rollin’, Rollin’. . .and Teethin’!

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She is getting two teeth and rolls over from back to front and front to back with no problem. Four and a half months and my littlest girl is growing, growing, growing. Just this morning we were checking in on those two little teeth and Maggie got to feel them. After Maggie confirmed that the two teeth were indeed on their way, she got her head really close to Audrey’s and said, “Congratulations, Audrey!! You’re getting new teef!!!” 

I almost melted from how adorable it was. I have no idea where she has heard us use the word ‘congratulations’ but she found the exact perfect time to use it. 

Audrey Bell rolling

Last weekend Barry took Maggie and headed up to visit his parents and go to a BBQ at Tyler and Joey’s. I stayed home with Audrey with the intent of working on the photo book from Maggie’s second year. I am officially 99% of the way done with it, but I really didn’t get as much done as I had hoped. I was really committed to the idea of spending as much one-on-one time with Audrey while she was awake, since most of our days are splintered between Maggie’s needs and getting things done around the house. 

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Audrey took a few smaller naps during the day, and so we got some great time together and I absolutely loved it. I think it might have been the first time that I really realized how differeent Audrey’s infancy is from Maggie’s. Audrey has the constant entertainment of her big sister and our house is always full of noise and clatter, in comparison to Maggie’s and being our only child at the time, we practically pushed the mute button on our world if she dozed off.

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Syd has been a bit under the weather and we ended up taking her into the vet late last week after she was hardly responsive to us. It was fairly traumatic for Barry and me, as I think we both take Sydney’s presence in our lives for granted these days. For me, I really noticed when suddenly Syd wasn’t following us around and watching our every move. She is woven into the fabric of our  lives so tightly. It turns out that she pretty much threw her back out and was experiencing a ton of pain. So much pain that she couldn’t even move her neck to look at us. 

 

 

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The day that we made her vet appointment, I spent time feeling really sad. It was horrible to have to carry her outside to pee or even to the porch to be in the sun. She wasn’t even interested in eating cheese!! At one point she went and hid behind the woodpile…I was convinced that she was trying to get away from us so she could go and die. Never before have I been so nervous to take her to the vet. 

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When the time came to load her into the car, I had the girls all ready and went to go put her collar on and she hopped right up and ran outside to the car. Ummmm….what? She hadn’t been able to move the previous two days, but suddenly she could bust a move out to the car? Once we drove the 2 miles to the vet, she was back to feeling bad. Naturally, I think she ran out to the car purely on adrenaline. 

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Our vet is amazing and almost knew immediately what was going on. She kept Syd for a few hours, ran some tests, did an x-ray and gave her some drugs. When we left, Syd wasn’t even lifting her head and her muscles in her neck were having major spasms. I was heartbroken. Jump to a few hours later, when the drugs really kicked in and we went back to check in with the hope of bringing her home, and she was a totally different dog. 

She’s been pretty sleepy in the days since we’ve come home, due to the pain medication, but at least she is exhibiting behavior that is more normal. I also think that her neck and back feel much, much better because she’s at least looking at us again and following us everywhere we go!! 

maggie & audrey

I’m hoping to post with a bit more frequency because when I finally do sit down, my brain almost can’t handle it. I started this post at 9 o’clock this morning and now it is 11:45 p.m., so my hope is that if I do quick, little posts with more frequency, I won’t feel so scattered. 

HHS Part 2

Tonight as Maggie was trying to fall asleep she mumbled to me that she wanted to ‘go back to vacation’ and I have to say, it made me SO proud. We live a very rich life that is full of happiness, but we’re also a crew that loves vacation and our life really slows down a bit once we shift in to vacation mode. Even though our trip up to Harrison was short, it sure was sweet and I can’t wait to go back….or at least go somewhere else. To know that Maggie’s sense of adventure was heightened by our trip, makes it all the more exciting to get out there and see things.  Here are the rest of the images from our trip to Canada. Not pictured is the car ride home….where Mags was devastated to be ‘leaving vacation, ‘ which was both sweet and  exhausting to listen to. 

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