Michelle's birthday

Happy 5th Birthday to my sweet Michelle. Her birthday was Wednesday. We really didn't do anything for her on Wednesday, but Alfredo took the day off on Thursday. He took the girls to Hollywood Connection. He didn't take the camera, so I don't have any photos of their fun. When they got home, Ella was asleep. So we ate dinner without her. Then Michelle wanted to have her cake right then. So she blew out her candles without Ella and ate cake while Ella was still sleeping. :)


Michelle also got a new outfit from Alfredo. I tried to get her to model it for me, but she was just being goofy and so there are just silly shots.

She has the best laugh. I love it.

my poor ella

Yesterday I took the day off since Michelle had thrown up on Sunday. Michelle was fine, but Ella had a low fever and didn't seem to be feeling too good. She complained several times that her arm hurt but it looked okay and she was grumpy and crying about everything.

Well, today after I picked her up from Janene's, Alfredo noticed that the area by her shoulder was swollen. He decided we better take her to insta-care. Which we did. They looked at it and took an x-ray. She broke her clavicle. I'm not sure how, although she'd rolled off her bed early Monday morning and that's probably how it happened. But the doctor said that in young kids, the clavicle can break with just about any fall. She's a tough little cookie. When we got to insta-care, she asked if the doctor was going to cut her open. (perform a surgery like her open heart surgery). She cried a tiny bit when she got the xray but that was it. So poor Ella is supposed to wear a sling (with Snoopy and the Peanut gang on it) for 2-3 weeks. Poor thing fell asleep in the car on the way home. I feel so bad. I should have taken her to instacare yesterday. Poor sweet girl.

silly me... an interesting mother's day

So Mother's Day was eventful this year.

I woke up a little bit late. I was trying to cook breakfast and get things ready at the same time and burnt breakfast (my kids are too young to cook... and Alfredo had to work). I opened the front room window to let the smell air out. (charcoaled bacon does NOT smell or taste good).

We ate, got ready and were on our way to church. I rushed out the door and just grabbed keys as I was running out the door. When I got home from church, I realized that I managed to grab just a set of car keys with no house key. So we were locked out. Well, I thought, we'll go visit Alfredo at work and get the house key from him. So we did. He bought us lunch (it's Sunday, I know, but we were all starving by 1:15 and it is Mother's Day so I made an exception). Then we drove back home. About a mile from our house, Michelle said she didn't feel good. She said she was going to throw up. I said we were almost home. She said she really felt sick. I handed her a tupperware container that had held cereal but was now empty. She immediately vomited 3 times into the container (which I promptly threw away once we got home).

So we were home. But the key Alfredo had given me was actually a spare key to my aunt's house and not the key to our house. So we were still locked out. Well, no big deal. I had left the window open (to air out the burned bacon) so I just had to get the screen off and climb through the window and unlock the door. So I grabbed the ladder. But while the window is not very high up, the ground underneath it is uneven. And so the ladder was not very steady. And I'm 6 months pregnant. And I'm naturally clutzy. Just as I was thinking that climbing the ladder was probably not such a great idea for me, Janene and Chris drove by. I flagged them down, Chris climbed the ladder, removed the screen and unlocked the door. (thanks chris!!) I took my children inside, cleaned Michelle up and we all laid down to watch a movie. Fortunately, Michelle hasn't thrown up since and seems to be feeling fine. I've decided to take tomorrow off anyway, just in case she is up during the night or is sick tomorrow.

What an exciting day we had! I hate when I do dumb things like lock myself out. Alfredo was very sweet, not saying anything about how silly it was that with all the sets of keys we have I took the one that had no house key. And he took care of dinner tonight. He also watched the girls last night so I could go see a movie. very sweet. it really was a pretty good day, just a little more eventful than I had planned.

i'm reading

Last night, Michelle came and said, "Mommy, get Ella to come and play with me." I walked into my room and said, "Ella, why don't you play with Ella." Her response: "Not right now. I'm busy reading. Tell her I'll play when I'm done reading." (I have probably said this a few times to my kids... it's always interesting to hear your words parroted back at you.)

I think both of my girls will be readers. (With me as a mom, how can they not be?) But Ella seems like it may be even more her thing than Michelle's. She has several books she can "read" to me (that she's memorized) and she is always asking me to read her "bookies". She loves to be read to.

This last pic has nothing to do with the post, but I thought it was cute and funny and it was also taken last night. Michelle is one cool dude.

wrestling match

Last night the girls had a wrestling match/tug of war with their daddy. I only caught the tail

end of it. They were climbing on him, he would catch them and tickle them or hold their legs so they couldn't escape. They tried all kinds of tactics, working as a team against daddy. They would jump on him, lick him, tickle him (he's not ticklish so this was ineffective), pull on each other's legs to try to free the other, etc. It was pretty amusing.

bike rider

yesterday after work, Michelle said she wanted to show me something. Ella got a bike for Christmas. Santa Claus (me) didn't do a very good job assembling the bike and one of the training wheels came off a week or two ago. I haven't gotten around to putting it back on, but Michelle is pretty good at riding it with one training wheel. Well, yesterday Michelle twisted the remaining training wheel up so it no longer touched the ground at all, hopped on the bike, steadied herself for a second and then began zooming up and down the street. Never once did Alfredo or I hold the back of her bike to give her practice getting her balance. Guess she doesn't need training wheels anymore!
She rode in a long dress no less. I can remember learning to ride a bike. I think I was six or so when the training wheels came off, and it seemed like it was hard for me to keep my balance for days or weeks after that. But Michelle definitely has better coordination than me. She is also pretty fearless. She is an eager learner and will probably be much more athletic than I am (not that this is saying much... I am NOT an athlete.)

She had the hugest grin on her face in this photo. She is proud of herself. I was proud of her too. When I told Alfredo, he said she'd been riding like that for at least a week. He didn't seem to think it was that surprising or that big of a deal. I, however, was very impressed.

pregnant preschoolers

I have two preschoolers who are pretty interested in pregnancy. (Ella starts preschool in one month, so I guess I can consider her a preschooler now.)

Anyway, Michelle has put balloons under her shirt a couple times this week and shown me her pregnant belly.

Ella goes around sticking her belly out as far as she can. Then she'll say, "ooh, my baby's kicking." "My baby is getting bigger but she's not ready to come out yet." and other comments about the baby in her tummy. (take a close look and you can see Michelle's cute dimple in the first picture.)