She's Almost 4!

Lily is on a roll with her funnies this weekend.
Me: "What comes after church"(expecting her to say lemonade at the fellowship hour, her favorite thing)
Lily: "Monday and we go to school!"
While watching Tennessee rush the court after beating Kentucky, "why are the people running on the field?"
We watched the US-Canada gold medal game at a birthday party this afternoon and she was in the other room when Canada crushed our hearts and beat the US and she came in the room with her hands on her head "Oh man those Canadas scored. They won the whole game."
She has asked 100 questions about her birthday. I don't blame her, it's pretty confusing that her actual birthday is Tuesday, and she gets to celebrate at home and at school and then Saturday we're having her princess party with a handful of girls. She knows Tuesday is her birthday, but I guess she figures her party should be Tuesday too. She asked today "Will I still be 4 at my birthday party?"

Imogene is doing a great job bearing weight into her right arm while she crawls (which is actually called creeping by therapists). She is really getting around more up on all fours, and while she still goes on her belly in an army crawl, more often than not she starts out up off her belly before going down. That's progress. We go back to the pediatrician tomorrow for a weight and height check. I have a good feeling she packed on some pounds these past few weeks despite how sick she was!

Just Text Me

So today Lily was very into playing with Emily, the doll she got for Christmas. (I was starting to think about boxing her up for later in the year, she hardly touches her these days.) Of course I had to do all the dressing of Emily, and undressing, and dressing, and undressing. And then Emily had yoga class, so I had to be the yoga teacher. And then Emily had ballet class. And I was the ballet teacher, and I had to call Lily "Emily's mom." So Emily's mom dropped Emily off for ballet class and said to me "I'll just text you when I'm coming back to get her." So she goes off to another corner of the room and then says, "Teacher, aren't you going to do something? I dropped her off and I haven't texted you that I'm ready for her to be done." WHERE DOES SHE COME UP WITH THIS STUFF?
Then we dressed Emily, and then dressed her back into her ballet clothes for her recital. Which I of course had to do. Lily and one of her other babies watched, and when I would say okay we're done, and Emily would do a little curtsy, she would say, "No, I'm not ready for you to be done yet. Keep dancing." She's just so funny.

A Little Progress

We went back to see Dr. Baldrate today. She said that Imogene's rash is that of roseola, and that the rash should go away by Sunday. We were probably pretty lucky that she was on antibiotics when she caught this virus, because she could have been even sicker than she was/is.(although it's pretty unbelievable that she got it while on antibiotics.) Leave it to Imogene!
She is feeling a little better, because for the first time in 5 days she let me put her down and played some today. I even got some laundry done, and organized a bunch in the basement. I felt very accomplished, and then we came upstairs to get ready for dinner. And Lily says, "Hey Mom, could you help me with my lunch plate?" Apparently I never finished cleaning up lunch.

Not a Happy Camper

Poor Imogene. She is just miserable. Based on the fact that her body is covered in a rash, it appears she has roseola, which is a viral infection characterized by high fever for several days followed by a rash after the fever ends. That would fit Imogene exactly. We have an appointment scheduled for tomorrow if we feel like she's not getting better. She is so, so miserable that I think I might take her. Really, what's another doctor's appointment? She was so unhappy during OT today - in the end I really shouldn't have taken her, but with their cancellation policy (24 hour notice is taken very seriously) it's hard to know when to cancel. I did cancel for tomorrow's PT - she's just not up for all that this week.

Lily is so excited to be 4. She keeps talking about how there are 6 days left, and then there will be 5, and then 4, etc. But when you remind her that most 4 year-olds get themselves dressed, she says that her birthday is in 10 days. She is too smart sometimes. Lily asks me the title of every song we listen to (especially on Glee). I've realized that song titles sound really, really silly when you say them out loud. For example, "Bust Your Windows" or "Can't Fight This Feeling" - both Glee songs, of course. Tonight I ran upstairs while the girls were playing in the basement to put dinner in the oven and Lily said "Mom, I'll be a good babysitter while you're gone." She comes half-way up the stairs about 2 minutes later as I hear Imogene getting a little fussy. "I'm sorry Mom, I just couldn't keep that baby happy for soooo long."

A Virus, A Nasty, Nasty Virus

Imogene had blood work done this morning at the doctor. Her white blood cell count was low, which shows a virus. Based on some other indicators from the labs, the doctor classified it as a nasty virus. Since it's a virus there isn't anything for her to take to get better, just have to run its course. We made a follow-up appointment for Thursday in case she's not getting better. We already have an appointment scheduled for Monday for a weight & height check based on her 12 month stats. And next Thursday Lily has her 4 year check-up.

Seriously, they might have an express lane for us at the pediatrician soon.

Another congratulations for our friends Brian and Sherry here in DC. They welcomed their baby girl Virginia Madison last night. (Imogene's name was almost Virginia, so we love that!) What a baby boom for our friends! Yeah for the Hopes!

Puppet Show Pictures

The girls are ready for the show!

Maggie & Imogene in their pj's.

Meet Miss Pam -

Lily's teacher for next year, and a loyal blog reader.

Also an incredibly dear woman who is always checking on us

and loves Imogene! She'll let you hold her one day Miss Pam!

poor Imogene is sooo tired. But the rest of us were having fun!

Lily and some friends from school, with their post-show milk and cookies. The little girl on the right is Lexy, who is in the 4 year-old class. Lily is in love with Lexy.

It's her first 'older-girl' crush.

Radio Program on Childhood Stroke

Although we don't have a 100% confirmation, it is likely that Imogene's hemiparesis was caused by a stroke before she was born. There was a program on NPR yesterday on childhood stroke. It is really interesting. At about 25 minutes in they discuss strokes before or just at birth. If you've got a chance, you might find it worth listening to the show. What caught my attention - about a third of all childhood strokes (according to this doctor) happen before or just around birth, the diagnosis for stroke around birth is usually at 3-6 months (exactly when we saw it first in Imogene) and that recurrence of stroke is much less likely when the stroke occurred at or before birth.
http://wamu.org/programs/dr/

It's back

Imogene's fever is back, so we're going today to see if the doctor can figure out what's going on. Our wonderful Dr. Baldrate isn't in on Tuesdays, but we've gotten to know another doctor there pretty well (we're there enough!) so I feel comfortable with her. But I wish it was Dr. B!
Mornings have been rough for Lily - she does not want to get dressed, or brush her hair, or eat breakfast. Somedays it's just one of those terribly awful things she has to do, sometimes it's all of them that set her off. Today she did all of it without fussing or whining. As she was putting her shoes on she said "Hey Mom, I'm full of happy today. I didn't fuss at all." Kids are funny little people.

Imogene has not had a fever since late this morning, but has been quite the fuss-bucket. She just isn't herself, and now she's not really eating. Poor girl. If she has any fever tonight we'll take her back to the doctor tomorrow.
Lily is going to be 4 in 8 days! Everything she sees she asks if she can have it for her birthday.

My dear friend from college Emily Hollis Tate and her husband Steve welcomed baby Herrin Ann this morning. She joins her beautiful big brother & sister Tilghman and Hollis. So happy for this wonderful news - and hope I'll get to go to Atlanta sometime in the near future to meet her! Congrats Tates!

More Fever

The good news is that Imogene does not have any new ear infections. The bad news is that she is still running a pretty high fever. She was so upset at dinner that she threw up everything she ate (sorry, that's gross.) It is probably a virus on top of the current ear infection, but she's unhappy to say the least. Poor baby, she just can't catch a break.
But we've had a nice weekend nevertheless and finished it up with a visit from "Aunt" Erin - that's a great Sunday in itself!
Lily watches NASCAR with Bill whenever she can. It's a long story how we got involved in watching car racing - let's just say that it has nothing to do with me growing up in SC, but came from a friend of a friend during Bill's law school days. So anyway, Lily adopted as 'her car' today the car driven by Juan Pablo Montoya - because he drives the Target car. There's that brand recognition for you!

Back to Baldrate We Go

Imogene has been sleeping well this week at night. Not so much during the day. She took two good naps today, and after the afternoon one seemed really warm, but she's always warm and snuggly after a nap. We headed to her little friend Kathryn's birthday party, where Imogene was still feeling warm. She wasn't quite herself, and was pretty fussy by the time we got home and took her temperature - fever of 102.5. She didn't eat much of anything for dinner, so we called Dr. Baldrate (I knew she was on call) since she's been on antibiotics all week and she said to bring her in tomorrow morning. Yes, tomorrow is Sunday. She may have an ear infection in the other ear. It's always something.

Great News

Ber, that I told you about yesterday, does not have a brain injury and does not show any sign of a stroke. What amazing news for the vanderMeer family! They believe at this point it was a seizure. I have chills just thinking about how relieved they must be. Now he will continue to recover from his surgery, and then restart his fight against cancer with chemo. Please continue to keep him and his family in your thoughts and prayers.

A Prayer Request

For over two years I've been following the caringbridge.org page of one of my sorority sister's sons, Ber. Ber is 6, and has been battling neuroblastoma, stage 4, since right before he turned 4 years old. He had been doing really well, but had a cancerous tumor removed yesterday (and a piece of his rib). This morning he took a bad turn, and it appears that he had a stroke - he's showing a lot of weakness on his left side. Bill and I ache for his parents. We can't imagine what they have been through these last two years, much less add even a fraction of what we've gone through with Imogene to all that they've been dealt. Ber will have an MRI very soon, and it's possible it was only a seizure, but the doctors are pretty sure it's a stroke, but hope Ber will recover as best he can. Please, please pray for the vanderMeers, keep them in your thoughts - whatever you can do to hold their family in your heart.

We had a great, great time tonight at the preschool Family PJ/Puppet Show. Unfortunately Bill didn't get there until the end, but did get to partake in some milk and cookies. I can't wait to post the pictures. Lily kept saying - "this is so funny, we're in our jammies at school at night." And then giggling uncontrollably.

For over two years we had a wonderful, dear, sweet young woman named Magda babysit on Wednesdays. Recently she stopped coming (it's not a bad thing, just decided we could use the money elsewhere!) - Lily hadn't said a word about her absence, and I was beginning to think that she'd just forgotten about her. Literally as I am thinking this in my head yesterday Lily said "hey, where's Magda today?" I told her that she wasn't coming anymore and Lily said "I know what Mom. I'll use my fairy wand and my fairy princess crown and I'll make them all magic-y and I'll do a specially fairy spell and I'LL be a babysitter. Won't that be great?" If only, Lily!

I've not always been one to give something up during Lent. But this year I've decided to try and do something that might add to our life, and not take away from it, but it involves stopping something. I'm going to stop losing my patience. At first I said it would be with the girls - of course mostly Lily here. Most of what Lily does that wears down my nerves and my patience is not really her fault. It's just the nature of her age and her curiosity level. And I guess Imogene can't really help it when she throws her food all over the floor in disgust. Either way with both, I need to just accept it and move on I think. And then I decided I'm just going to try and stop losing my patience with life in general. No more getting angry or frustrated at the guy in front of me who isn't turning right on red when there are clearly no pedestrians present; no more frustration with telemarketers who are just doing a job that pays- it's not their fault the credit card company is driving me nuts offering me some expensive protection policy; no more huffing and puffing in the grocery store check-out line, or as I drive around the therapy center parking lot for the 100th time looking for a space since the lot has shrunk by about 10 spots because of all the darn snow (Funny side note- about 10 minutes of driving around Lily says "What will we do if we miss therapy? I won't get my toy from Susan (the PT) for being a good helper and big sister. Her priorities are straight right?) I really and truly hope to take more deep breaths and try to just accept the moments of life as just that. Moments that add up to just a day, that will be followed by another day. And maybe each day will be a little bit better, because I'll stop being so impatient and frustrated and more accepting of what is good around me. Or maybe not.

Our Own McKinley High

So of course while we're making dinner we have to listen to the Glee CD. During bedtime Lily sang the following medley: "Sweet Caroline, buh, buh, buh (needs no explanation), ohhh-ohh, yeah (from "Bust-a-Move", yes, fellow 80's kids, THAT "Busta-Move") and she finishes off with "I will not try deflying graviky" (her version of "Defying Gravity" from Wicked). Those are the three songs that stuck in Lily's head. I will say that she had the melody right for all three songs. Again, she's got the musical gene I Think. She also told me that she just "loves, loves, loves Glee." And could we "play Glee" tomorrow? She told me she'd be Rachel, the lead singer, or Quinn, the cheerleader! Mommy is allowed to be Kurt, the very effeminate one, or Finn, the captain of the football team. Goodness Gracious what have I created?

And then there's Imogene. Always keeping me on my toes, or my brain reeling. On Monday Dr. Baldrate counted her teeth. SIXTEEN. I'm not sure Lily had sixteen teeth when she was 2. So Imogene only needs to grow 4 more molars, and she'll have all her child teeth. Are you kidding me? This kid just didn't read the baby books did she? We also did a weight check. You loyal readers may remember that Imogene's weight gain from 9 months to 12 months was about one pound. This is not a lot, and took down to the 7th percentile. Dr. Baldrate said she should be gaining 1/2 to 3/4 of a pound a month. Monday she had actually lost a few ounces, and she was wearing her clothes. So in reality she probably lost several ounces, and dropped down to about the 5th percentile. There are a lot of reasons that this may be happening - she's more active, she's been sick a lot lately, all the antibiotics could play a factor. Dr. Baldrate wasn't worried that she has any underlying medical condition causing it at this point, but encouraged us to find as many high-calorie, quality foods that we could for her to eat. One problem is that a lot of the tricks for getting babies to put on weight involve milk or milk products, and Imogene hasn't yet been tested in that realm. We're not sure she's okay with soy yet - it's hard to know what is really going on since she's basically been on antibiotics ever since we started the soy in her diet. Little things that come up from the colds or the antibiotics (small rashes, diaper rashes, yucky diapers) could be from just that, and not a reaction to the soy. So who knows what's going on. We go back next Monday (March 1 is next Monday, sheesh!) for another weight and height check, and we'll go from there, again.

Lily's New Obsession

In her defense, this is my fault. At his office gift exchange, Bill got the Glee Season One DVD's. (Glee is a show on Fox about a high school glee club.) I had seen one episode and liked it, so Bill and I started watching it when we lost our cable back in January. We liked it (I worship it) and so we finished it last week. For Valentine's I got the two cd's of the show's music. So of course Lily needs to know everything about the music, who all the people are on the CD cover. She goes all in on something like this - it's just how she is. So when she figured out that the songs were on a show, she had to see it. Needless to say, a show on Fox about high school kids (despite the fact that it's not really all that risque, there is a pregnant character, etc.) is not exactly for Lily's viewing. But the music parts are okay, so we've spent the last two afternoons watching the songs on the DVDs. She is absolutely obsessed. I really don't blame her, but her questions are incessant. Especially when the cheerleader is pregnant and she stops being on the cheerleading squad, so she no longer wears her uniform in every scene. Lily HAS to know why she's not "the cheerleader anymore. where is her cheer costume?" She will not accept my "she just isn't wearing it anymore" answer. I am not surprised at all at her love of the show. For starters, it's an awesome show. But more than anything, Lily just loves singing and dancing. (Her Naney was a drama major, and sang in the Miss South Carolina pageant. I sang in a children's choir and did a teeny, tiny bit of acting.) It's in her blood! Her favorite movies are Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, and White Christmas. And now she has a favorite TV show.

Picture Time, Picture Time

This is one of the snow days ... Lily is reading to Imogene.

(I just looked closely at this picture. Lily's outfit is a riot and her eyes are so swollen. And poor Imogene's nose is just running away! These girls - no wonder they are both on antibiotics!)
Today at lunch. Imogene is trying hard these days to feed herself anything she can. We are having a tough time at meals. Lily just won't sit still and won't eat anything besides PB&J, mac and cheese, hot dogs, grilled cheese, plain pasta and ravioli with no sauce. I kid you not - those are the choices. She does a little better at breakfast eating a better variety, but doesn't sit for long enough to eat anything. Imogene appears to want to eat anything and everything, but usually screams and throws food. We are having a tough time figuring out what she wants. She loves bread and crackers, but that's about all we know for sure that she'll eat.

This is her attempt at feeding herself yogurt. She abandoned the spoon 1/2 way through. Goodness knows how much actually went into her belly. In her defense, it's soy yogurt and doesn't taste very good.

Imogene with her Valentine's present. A stuffed puppy in honor of her first, and still only, word. We named him "doh."

Lily received Cinderella to go along with Belle and Snow White, her tiny princess dolls. She has still not watched any of the movies, but loves them just the same.

Tired.Tired.Tired.

We're just tired around here. I'm sure it has a lot to do with the snow. It's exhausting to get everyone dressed in all the gear, exhausting to drive in the mess of snow piles and one lane roads, tip toeing around ice piles, etc. (Warning, I think I'm about to complain a lot.) Perhaps we're tired from wiping the girls' noses 10-20 times each hour and from checking their temperature all day. Today I know that I am tired from taking them to the pediatrician, which with terrible traffic and all that I had to talk to the pediatrician about, was a two hour trip. Lily is being treated for a sinus infection, and Imogene has her first ear infection. Both girls have gotten congestion and puffiness in their eyes. So both are on antibiotics. Imogene has a terrible cough from it. It's good times all around. Bill is tired because after a week straight of being in the house with two sick girls, poor Bill is really not feeling his best. Go figure! And we're both tired because it's been about oh, 13 months since we've had anything close to a full night's sleep. Imogene has a few good nights here and there, but boy, we've had some rough nights lately. In her defense, this is her THIRD round of antibiotics this year. So of the 45 days of the year, she's been on antibiotics for 1/2 of them, and she's about to add 10 more. She had been doing a lot better going to sleep on her own - meaning we could put her down awake for nap and bedtime and she'd go to sleep without a ton of screaming. That's gone. Bill almost always has to go in and get her back to sleep. (If I go she wants nothing to do with me but nurse. Yes, we're still nursing, but that's for another day.)
Lily is finally going back to school tomorrow. Bless her wonderful preschool. Even though the public schools are not able to open because of the condition of sidewalks and roads, the preschool is open. (We usually follow the public school schedule.) Lily is SO EXCITED. SO ARE WE! She said today that "her" baby dolls at school have been crying and crying because they miss her so much. And that Bill must be very excited to take her to school tomorrow to see her friends. We made sugar cookies this afternoon for her Valentine's party. She did a great job rolling the dough and was just too cute. Very proud of herself and very into eating the cookie dough. "Oh mommy I'm just so hungry, I need to eat just a little more dough." There's my girl. She may not like chocolate, but she loves raw cookie dough. It's too much to even think about that she's going to be FOUR in two weeks! She really can test every last nerve and ounce of patience I have, but she really is about the sweetest, dearest thing. She and I went to a birthday party yesterday. All the girls wore princess dresses and had a little ballet lesson. They also all sat down to a little tea party. It was precious. Lily was a little overwhelmed by the tea party part. The birthday girl was the only girl she knew and sitting at a table with 12 little girls was a bit more than she could take in. But the dance part was an amazing memory for me. She would look over at me every few minutes and just beam with delight. She was having the best time. Dancing and singing and definitely her favorite things to do. Lily, Imogene and I had a terrifically silly Taylor Swift dance party this weekend.
So yes, I'm really tired. Bill is really tired, and sick, and putting Imogene back to sleep right now. But we have two sweet, beautiful girls who make being so tired so worth it.

Groundhog Day

And we're still in Siberia. Lily actually said today, "why is the sun out?" It's been that long since we've had a nice day. Or at least it feels that way to all of us. It was cold today, but not miserable, and we all actually ventured out. Lily and Mommy to make a snow bunny & a snow girl, Mommy & the girls just to walk down the street, and poor Daddy only got out to shovel, again. Daddy had to work today, and is really not feeling well. Go figure - he's done nothing but shovel, work, and be cooped up in a house with two very runny-nosed coughing feverish little girls!!!!

We are supposed to be precipitation free until, wait for it.... Monday!!! when we have a 50% chance of a few more inches. Really, what's a few more inches when you've already gotten 35 in a week!!!

Wednesday morning. Not sure you can tell, but there was snow blowing absolutely everywhere.

Our snow girl. And our other snow girl.

She couldn't get up. I was amazed she could even walk around at all. When I stepped into the snow, it went up almost to my knees. There's no telling how much snow was still under my feet.

Lily loves the book and TV series "Max & Ruby." We built a snow bunny just like they did. I think it looks part fox, part dog, part cat, part bunny. But Lily loved it, and that's all that matters!

Snowed In

We got around 10 more inches yesterday in a true blizzard - winds were horrendous. Miraculously we didn't lose power. I admit that getting stuck in your house for the greater portion of 6 days has been pretty mind-boggling. But we managed to have some sweet moments yesterday. Bill was home, but poor him - unfortunately had to spend a great part of the day working. Lily and I made chocolate kiss peanut butter cookies. Lily's job was to unwrap the kisses and when I told her we needed 48 she said "That is a LOT!" And then asked me to count with her after every single kiss she unwrapped. She helped me roll the dough into balls and in the sugar (hers were very cute with her little finger prints all over them.) And she helped put the kisses in the cookies. Funniest part, she only eats the cookie if it doesn't have a kiss on top. Whose kid is this? Doesn't want the chocolate???? So now we've baked chocolate chip cookies, brownies and peanut butter cookies. And blueberry muffins. And we've made pancakes, omelets, chicken corn chowder, tacos, beef stroganoff, and tonight we're having honey chicken in the crock pot. I cheated one night and made lasagna from the freezer. Buddy am I sick of the kitchen! We're looking forward to heading out to dinner tomorrow night - with rest of Alexandria I'm sure! People will be out in full force I'm sure dying to get out of their houses.

Imogene seems to be a little stir-crazy. She could definitely use a change of scenery. But she's gotten lots of practice this week on her hands and knees, and really wants to crawl. Per the PT & OT suggestions, we've ordered a 'pedi-wrap' for her to stabilize her arm. It is traditionally used for kids after surgeries or in the hospital that keep them from scratching at stitches, etc. But it should help stabilize Imogene's arm enough so that she feels more comfortable bearing weight on it. Of course it hasn't come yet, since we have only gotten mail once in a week.

Lily watched "Cars" yesterday, which for a while was her absolute favorite thing. She remembered afterward that she couldn't find her Lightning McQueen toy, so she came up with the idea to make a 'missing' poster for everyone who came over to see that he was missing. It was pretty clever of her (of course I did most of the drawing!) but she was so cute about looking for him. lily has actually handled all of this really well, despite a terrible cold and what appears to be a stomach bug settling in on her and her daddy. Good times for all! (perhaps putting her fingers all over the cookies wasn't such a good idea after all?) She misses school she said - she finally gets to go back on TUESDAY. Goodness gracious.

Did we mention that the weather forecast has us getting a few more inches on Monday?????

Here in Canada - Pictures to Prove It

You might have heard that the Federal Government is closed again tomorrow. You might think that's pretty silly of them. You would be wrong. This place is a mess. We drove out to lunch and to Target today, and then Bill went out again looking for de-icing salt. Go figure, it took about 5 places to find it. The interstate is a mess Bill reports and even the bigger roads around here that are pretty major thoroughfares are just covered in snow. They have been plowed, but the layer of ice and snow is so thick, and makes for quite the rollercoaster ride in the car! We just saw a weather report that says the 'best chance' for tomorrow into Wednesday is 10-15 more inches. This is more stressful than fun as Bill just said. There are 20-30 mile per hour winds forecasted with this new storm (I like the name Snoverkill someone suggested!) and that means more worries about trees coming down, which leads to power outages. There are so many trees down around here. I am at a loss for how to describe how many! Yesterday I saw a crew of inmates shoveling snow, and a few walked down our street this afternoon. Yep, the department of transportation and the city corrections department have a program where inmates shovel snow. Nice! I will say that the storm has given us a lot of family time, although Bill has spent most of it shoveling. Together we've wiped the girls' noses approximately 350 times. They both have terrible colds, but are hanging in there pretty well.

This is our street.

Our house.

This doesn't really tell you how much we got, because she's standing on a slope!

The snow made a nice chair.

Imogene loves being outside in the snow. Go figure.

You've got to be Kidding

That's right. More snow is forecasted for our area Tuesday afternoon into Wednesday morning. Probably around 4 inches, could get as much as 8. Do you know how sick Bill is of shoveling snow? Really, really sick of it. Not to be grumpy, but getting two small children plus two adults dressed to go outside when there are 25+ inches of snow on the ground is exhausting. We spend more time getting dressed to go outside than we do actually outside. We did make a little snowman today, and at bedtime tonight Lily said that was her favorite part of the day. She's so cute all bundled in her snowbib which makes her waddle more than walk and her gloves and hat. Imogene had a great time in the baby carrier on a walk this afternoon. And we were very lucky that we didn't lose power this weekend. There are still a few houses on a side street near us without power for the third night. School is out tomorrow, the federal government is closed, and even Bill's office is closed. This was a mammoth storm.
Imogene was very pumped to see all the dogs on our walk. Her only word, besides Dadadada, is "doh" for dog. Sometimes it sounds like "dat" or the tiniest bit like 'dog.' She almost always says it when she sees a dog, and usually says it when we see any other animal too. Bill stumbled upon "Puppy Bowl" on the Animal Planet channel. It's just puppies playing with toys and each other on a pretend football field, but Imogene goes nuts and just says 'doh' over and over again. She had the same reaction during halftime of the Puppy Bowl when they had the "kitty halftime show." Very funny.
We went over to some neighbors for the Super Bowl (where we stayed too long and Bill is upstairs now with Imogene trying to get her to sleep since it was way past bedtime when we got home - she does not go off schedule very well.) So we've been talking to Lily about the Super Bowl - once she asked Bill if the Redskins were in the game HA HA HA! (Bill just came downstairs and said "I'm really sick of the snow.") and yesterday we said "tomorrow is the Super Bowl Lily." She started cheering "Yeah, Super Bowl, Super Bowl, Super Bowl." Pauses, "What's the Super Bowl again?" She learned the teams that were in it, and that her Uncle Ryan really, really wanted the Colts to win. Lily is going to love sports like we do I think. She begs to watch the Georgetown games (this is because she and 'her dad' have been there, and that makes it cooler I think) and know when Maryland or Virginia Tech is on TV. We are very close to her being able to tell us the score if we're in the other room with Imogene. We're good parents, we know. Poor Lily though, she's been fighting hard against a nasty cold this weekend, and I think she's going to lose the battle tonight or tomorrow. Good thing there's no school tomorrow.

Snow Pictures

This is looking left to our neighbor's yard. It's hard to tell, but there is 1/2 a tree laying in their walkway, on the back of their car.

Looking out our front door (no, I didn't leave the front step!)

To the right of our house. Those bushes are usually about 8-10 feet tall.

That's my car in there somewhere.

I took this last night. I couldn't get the lighting right, but it's still pretty cool.

Apparently we have about 8 more hours of snow to fall, possible 4-8" more snow. Fortunately we still have power, but just two blocks down they are out of power, so I'm really anxious about that! The snow is very heavy, and we're scheduled for a breezy, breezy day.

Snowtorious B.I.G.

No, fellow 90's rap fans, I did not come up with that clever title for the snow storm. Our local NBC station has given the storm we're getting that ridiculously silly nickname. So far we've gotten a good amount of snow, maybe 4-5". The weather service and everyone in the area is saying it has a potential to be the biggest snow in the DC area in history - at upwards of 30". That's more snow than Imogene is long. As I look outside right now I thought, it's really not that bad yet. The graphics on the news just said "Just the Beginning." So yeah, "it's not that bad, YET!"

Snowarama

So we're about to get wallopped again by a huge snowstorm, which is normal because we live in Maine and all. Oh, we don't live in New England? It only feels like that because it has snowed three times in the last week? Oh right. Of course. Silly me. Alexandria closed schools yesterday, so that meant that Lily's school was cancelled yesterday (I am sure they wish they hadn't closed school for a snow that had melted by mid-morning, since they've already cancelled school for tomorrow. And looks like it will be at least Tuesday before they go back.)
This weekend should provide me with plenty of time to do a thorough update on the goings-on of the last week at the Siglers. But I couldn't let today go by without telling you my favorite part of today. Maggie folded my laundry without me even asking her to do so. I.LOVE.MAGGIE.

Pictures

We are ALL recovering from a great five days of the Just Ducky sale. But it is good to get our house back - we had clothes all over the place for almost a week! Thanks to our loyal readers who are also loyal customers!
I wanted to share these two cute pictures of Lily from the fall. A teacher at school took them on a garden club day when it was rainy!