Thankful

I cannot even describe how incredibily thankful and blessed I am this year. Sometimes I get so caught up in wanting more that I forget to stand back and look at all that I have. It's nice to have a reminder, but I probably need to do it more often.

I am so very thankful for my job and my co-workers, who are like a second family to me. I am so very thankful for my friends, some of whom I don't get to talk to or see very much anymore, but we know we love each other no matter what. I'm so very thankful for my family, that they don't live too far away but just far enough away :), that my in-laws get along and hang out, that we can see both sets of families in the same trip, that they are amazing in so many ways, and that they are FREE babysitters. I am so very thankful for my husband, who puts up with me when I am crazy, who makes me laugh everyday, who is a great father and would do anything for his little girl. And I am so very thankful for Charlotte, who has made my heart grow over the past 2.5 years in a way I could have never imagined. She is beautiful inside and out and I am truly blessed to be her mom.

Ok enough with the sappy stuff.

Of course Thanksgiving meant a trip to El Campo and fighting horrendous traffic. But once we were there it was great. We did Thanksgiving at Jason's parents on Thursday. There were lots of people and Charlie had fun playing with the kids. Friday we did lunch at my parents. And the rest of the weekend was spent black Friday shopping, relaxing, eating, drinking, etc.

At some point over the weekend, I decided I had had it with pull-ups. I decided from that point on (sometime on Saturday) that we were only doing pull-ups a night and on long car rides. And that was it. We had a pretty good day and 1/2 of that. The first 3 days a school were rough - she was going through like 3-4 pairs of pants a day. But I told myself I was not turning back. It's make or break time. Thursday and Friday, she did remarkedly better. She only had 1 accidenet each day - both were #2 (for some reason I cannot get her to do this on the potty). But I was happy that she had no pee accidents. This weekend she did rather well too. We had a couple of mishaps, but overall I was happy. So we will keep soldiering on and hopefully I will have a potty trained child soon. I'm so over potty training.

We also welcomed our elf, Arthur, into our house on the Sunday after Thanksgiving (sorry no pics - Arthur is not very creative). I don't think Charlie really got it at first, but now she is kind of into it. She looks for him every day and gets excited when she finds him. She also tells him when she goes "tee tee like a big girl." We did have a mishap the other day when she got a little close to where he was perched and he took a fall. But somehow he magically got back up when she wasn't paying attention. He's sneaky like that.

We had been talking up St. Nick's day, so much so that the night before she kept calling us into her room while she was in bed and asking us if she could go look in her stocking. Ha. Her reaction Friday morning was pretty cute, albiet a little tired. She now keeps asking when Santa is coming, and she really has no patience for it (I wonder where she got that gene). Everytime she sees a gift, she thinks it's for her and gets upset and I tell her Santa has not come yet.

We are full fledged into Christmas time though - watching the Polar Express and making gingerbread houses (which are way harder than they look). It's cute to see her excitement this year.

A couple of quirks about my girl lately:

• Really into all things princess - she wants to wear dresses.
• She doesn't say the word "don't." She'll say "I can't want that" instead of "I don't want that."
• When she doesn't get her way she does this really fake "waaaa" cry like if you were imitating a baby. It's annoying, I mean cute...no I mean annoying.
• She calls both her pigtails and toenails "pintails."

Oh and the other day I guess she wasn't happy with mommy and daddy (we were probably making her eat her food or take a bath or something dreadful like that). And she would say "I'm going to Grandma's" or "I'm going to Bebe's." Oh man, she must have them figured out huh?

Future soccer star right here

Charlie and Emily on a stakeout

All the kiddos!

And then us girls had some fun

And then I came home and chopped off my hair

Looking tired but trust me she was pumped!

 

Checking out the goodies

 

 



Skillfully decorating

Attention to detail

And then she passed out

Oh honey!

Time for a break

Woo! November has been a blur.

Two weeks ago, Jason and I headed to New Orleans with the Motals. It was so much fun. We had never been before so it was something new and different for us to experience. I loved every minute of it. I did miss my baby girl so much though. I felt like when we saw her she had changed so much.

I came back to complete craziness at work and it has just started to slow down a bit for Thanksgiving. Yay - I'm so happy to have some time off to spend with the family.

This past weekend was so yucky (weather-wise) so we stayed in most of the time and I got the Christmas tree up. It was a good weekend to work on potty training. But we are still only about 75% there. I don't know - she is just so inconsistent. One day, she will go on the potty all day long, and the next it is accident city. I'd like to think I could really do some work with her over the break, but we are going to be on the go so much, that I just don't see it happening. I am determined that this little girl will be 100% potty trained by her 3rd birthday - even if it's the day before. It's happening people!

Anyway, the one outing we did manage to make was to see Santa at the mall. I decided to take on the challenge by myself. There was quite a line so I was kind of worried, but Charlie did surprisingly well. She wanted to ride the little train they have set up there, but I told her Santa was the one handing out the tickets so we had to see him first (sometimes I amaze myself at my awesome lies creativity). Of course, after the picture taking came the waiting to see the pictures. Luckily Santa gave Miss C a lollipop so that kept her occupied for about 10 minutes. I got suckered into buying too much, including a ridiculous light-up picture frame (you are welcome instagram friends), but it was all worth it because Charlie just loved Santa this year. He asked her what she wanted for Christmas and at first she whispered "presents," so I told her to be specific and she said "a mermaid." That girl and Ariel are attached at the hip these days.

Of course because she was oh so patient and gave me some good smiles, she got to ride the train. Lordy be, though, getting her to leave the mall was a debacle in itself. But we survived, and she fell asleep on the way home. Yay - momma scored a naptime! Rare in our house these days. So I just have 1/2 day left a work and then a few days of turkey and family. I heard a rumor that we will be getting a special delivery Sunday in the form of an elf on a shelf. Very excited about that.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I know I have a TON to be thankful for this year!

This was the first day where it was half-way cold. I wanted her to look cute! She pulled it off! :)

Her and Stella have matching pjs - too presh

Love this smile

Has to be my favorite becuase she just looks like she is up to no good.

Don't you just want to eat her curls. Adorable

Seriously?

Ok so first there was the ER trip in the wee hours of the morning for an ear infection. Then there was an allergic reaction to the antibiotic. I thought we were free and clear for last week being an "easy" week. WRONG. Wednesday morning of last week Charlie waked up with a swollen eye. At first I thought maybe she hit it on something during the night, but the more I looked the more I thought it must be an allergic reaction to a mosquito bite. My eye used to swell like crazy as a kid when I got bit anywhere near my eye. I gave her some benadryl and took her to school. Well when I picked her up that afternoon her eye looked HORRIBLE. I was freaking out like maybe it wasn't really a mosquito bite after all. So guess where we ended up? Urgent care - fun fun.

Luckily the doctor was 99% sure it was a mosquito bite given her and my history to having reactions to bug bites and due to the fact that he was mashing all over her eye and she wasn't complaining one bit. So a few more days of benadryl and the eye was pretty much back to normal. Thank goodness. I guess I'm passing on some pretty stellar traits to my kid. Luckily she got to pretty curls from Jason.

Jason and I are going to New Orleans later this week, and I pray that Charlie is done with getting sick or having any weird episodes. I do not want to have to worry about that while we are gone.



I don't think I ever posted a pic of Charlie in her Halloween costume - so here you go!

At urgent care - how gross does her eye look?!?!

Passed out for nap time

School picture

Halloween and much much more!

Last week was a little rough at the Prochaska house. Charlie seemed like she was doing better after being on antibiotics for a couple of days to help clear up her ear infection. I had taken Monday off to do some much needed clean up around the house - I took a ton of stuff to Goodwill. Everything seemed to be going much better than the week before.

But then Tuesday afternoon, I got the dreaded call from daycare. Charlie had a fever of 103. That's high for her - she never gets fever. So I picked her up, gave her some ibuprofen and put her in the bath. The fever broke soon after and she seemed fine. Jason and I tag teamed working form home the next day since she wouldn't be allowed back at school for 24 hours.

Thursday, I noticed Charlie had a bit of a rash on her neck and stomach. I thought this might be roseola as she has gotten it once before after a high fever. She seemed fine so we took her to school. Her rash was a little worse when I went to her Halloween party that day and she was overall not very happy. However, she was pretty happy trick-or-treating. She was kind of scared at first, but once she realized people were giving her candy she was all about it.

Friday morning, her rash looked awful. I mean it was yuck. I took some pictures, but decided it she wasn't contagious so she was going to school. But once I got to work I emailed pictures to the doctor and they said they wanted to see her. So if you are counting right now, that means I didn't work a full day of work last week at all. Go me! Ha. Her appointment wasn't until 4, but I got a call from daycare around noon that Charlie was scratching all over and that her rash was looking worse. Fun!

By the time I got her to the doctor, she was just a hot mess. And as soon as the doctor walked in she said "That is an allergic reaction to penicillin." I was confused because Charlie has been on penicillin before and she had already been on it for 7 days before the rash showed up. She said usually this means that she will grow out of the allergy at some point, but for now, we will avoid giving it to her. Oh and since it was in her system for so long, it could take a week for the rash to go away. Yuck. Luckily, the benadryl helped a ton and she wasn't scratching it at all after that. It's already looking a ton better.

Hot mess hair after school

You can see some of the rash in this pic. It was way worse in person.

Friday night, the Motals and my sister came up. Charlie and Maggie were so happy to see each other. They make me laugh. The boys when to Wurstfest on Saturay, so us ladies hit up Target and some other stores, took the girls to the park, and then dinner at Gattitown. I think the girls had a blast, and they were pretty well behaved for all of the shuffling about we did with them. My sister was a big help since we had 3 kiddos with us. But Marion is probably the happiest, most easygoing baby ever. It's the 2 toddlers you gotta worry about. I had a blast with them and I was sad to see them go yesterday.

Morning playtime

Target trip - as soon as she saw that tutu, she wasn't letting go; she calls it her princess

Our attempt at group nap time - FAIL

Sliding!

Having a blast!

Jumping on the bed. These 2 are hilarious together!

Somehow in the past couple of weeks, Charlie has gone into full princess mode. If you ask if she is pretty, she said "No, I'm a princess." She is very into Ariel - I think she watched it 85 times this weekend. I mean she is so girlie these days and I dont' know how that happened. Ok so I did buy her a tutu which probably didn't help! :)

I love how when Charlie watches a movie she has seen a billion times, she'll still say "Oh no mommy, what's gonna happen." It's hilarious!

Here's to a hopefully quiet week for us.

Lunch on Sunday

It's a hard life



A trip to the ER

Jason travels some for work. He usually doesn't do overnights, but I always dread it when he does. This time he was going to be gone from Wednesday through Friday (so we wouldn't see him til El Campo this weekend). This is especially stressful for me because it means I have to load up Charlie and Avril and make the 2+ hour drive to El Campo on my own. Not my idea of a good time. But whatever, suck it up buttercup.

All week, Charlie's teachers have been saying she has been fussy. I thought maybe she stayed up too late (she's been wanting to play or read in her bed). And then Wednesday she was complaining that her head hurt. She was still acting fine, so I didn't think anything of it. She went to bed fine. Fast foward to 1am. She woke up crying. I went to comfort her, she went back to bed, only to wake up 10 minutes later crying again. This went on for a while. She said she wanted to lay on the couch, so I let her. She was still unhappy and the crying was turning into screaming and becoming more frequent. She said her cheek her (left side) and that she wanted a bandaid. I thought it might calm her down, so yes, I put a princess bandaid on her cheek. That didn't help. I took her earrings out thinking maybe they were scratching her or something. She fought me so hard on trying to take them out.

By 3am, Charlie was saying that her eye hurt (again on the left side). At this point I start freaking out - I mean she was complaining about her head and her eye - that's serious stuff. I went back and forth - do I call the doctor, do I take her to the ER, do I wait til the morning? She didn't have fever, but I've never seen her act this way and it was scaring me. I wanted to call Jason so bad, but I didn't want to freak him out over nothing. So I got dressed, got a few things together, and we were in the car headed to the ER. It cannot be more than 10 minutes from my house, but I felt like I was driving forever. Charlie was super calm - almost happy - in the car. I was thinking about turning around because she didn't seem to be hurting anymore, but I told myself to just trust my gut. I knew if we went home it would start all over again.

Of course the ER comes with a lot of waiting. At first Charlie did ok, she just kind of cuddled with me. Then we saw the triage nurse and Charlie didn't want a thing to do with her. Getting her temp, blood pressure, and weight were some hellish tasks for us. And after that, she was ready go home. She kept screaming "I go home. I want daddy." Oh my goodness, she was breaking my heart. I kept telling her the doctor was going to make her feel better, but she didn't understand. Finally after what seemed like forever we got into a room and then we had to wait some more. Charlie was a hot mess until the doctor came in and then she was remarkably calm. We did have to hold her down so the doc could look in the throat and ears, but she didn't really fight us too hard. As soon as the doctor said he wanted to look in her ears she said NO and put her fingers in her ears. And I knew right away she must have an ear infection. Why I didn't think of it before, I don't know. I guess because she hasn't had one in forever, and I just thought she was kind of growing out of that phase.

And the doctor confirmed my suspicion when looked in her left ear and said that she did in fact have a nasty ear infection. I was so relieved - that is something I can deal with. So we got some ibuprofen and some drops for pain and we were out the door with a prescription in hand. Charlie was asleep on my shoulder before I even made it to the car. We were back home by 5:30am.

I stayed home with her yesterday so we could catch up on sleep and I could monitor her pain level. She seems to be doing fine and back to her old self. Thank goodness. It is definitely a scary thing taking your kid to the ER in the middle of the night, and I really hope we don't have to do that again.

On the way to pick up her antibiotic - already feeling better after a 3 hour nap 

She deserved a donut

It's a stay in our PJs kind of day

Going for a walk - those are her glasses from when she was 3 months old - lordy be

Pumpkins

Two weeks ago, we headed to El Campo. Jason worked on his deer stand and such, which my mom and I took Charlie to the pumpkin patch. Ok they had a GREAT setup but it was HOT and HUMID and GROSS. It wasn't 10 minutes and my kid was done, and so was I. We didn't manage to get that many cute pics but oh well. We got to see Maggie and Marion so that was fun.

I had Columbus day off, which was awesome. It was a rainy gross day, so we spent it indoors and mommy got lots of cleaning/organizing done. I could totally live with having every Monday off - dreaming!!

Friday evening I picked up my Charlie but from school and cuddled some before I headed to El Campo to go to Coushatta. A little back story - my mom and her sisters go to Coushatta all the time (or at least it seems that way). They always invite the nieces to go. Jen has gone a couple of times. I've never gone and have always wanted to. They always seem to have such a great time. So I decided on a whim that this time I was going. I was sad to leave C but I knew she would be in good hands with daddy. In fact, she really didn't care about me leaving on Friday. It was "bye momma" and that was it. Geez - thanks.

Anyway, my mom, sister, my aunt, and I hit the road at 5am on Saturday. We made a pit stop at IHOP then straight to LA. We got there right at 10 and the fun continued (the car ride was freaking hilarious). We did it big on Saturday and we were back on the road home by 10am on Sunday. None of us won big but OMG I had a blast. I already want to go back. Jason was awesome about sending me pics of what they were up to. They went to the pumpkin patch in Elgin and I bet Charlie loved it. Of course they made a trip to Cabelas. I got home yesterday afternoon and was pleasntly surprised to find a clean, good smelling house. Maybe I need to leave more often! :)

I was so happy to see Charlie though (and Jason too). She wanted me to hold her for about a solid hour after I got home, so I think she missed me too! :)

Pony ride at the pumpkin patch

Being silly after bathtime

Shopping at Cabelas

Giggles

Pretty girl at school

Love this pic of them!

Too much fun

 

 

So funny

Group pic

Smiley

She loves corn on the cob