Happy 9th Birthday Graison!

It's 11:30pm, so technically it's still her birthday :o) It's been one crazy day today, but it was a good day all in all. I got up early and made one of her favorite breakfasts.. homemade cinnamon toast! I rolled her hair before school, so she was curly today :o) I'd made an appt to have our piggies and nails done, but the salon called and canceled due to an emergency with one of their children. So maybe we can do that another day next week. I sure hope so!! We went and ate at her favorite restaurant, Tortuga's, and had deep dish pizza!!! YUMMMM And she got her Nintendo DS and the game she wanted to go with it. What more could a girl ask for on her birthday? Saturday is her party and I'm still undecided what to do about a cake. Guess I better figure something out soon, huh?

Graisi, when you read this, I hope you had a great day today. Know that Daddy and I love you very much and really wouldn't trade you for a million dollars or a hot fudge sundae from McDonald :o) You are ours and we love you and your sister more than anything in the world, no matter how much yelling we do or how much you don't... I can't wait for another great year as your mom. I know wonderful things are ahead of us!!

Love you lots!!
Mommy and Daddy

Alli Claire's having surgery in the morning

Please say a prayer for us in the mornning. Alli Claire is going in for tubes in her ears and we have to be there at 6:15am. Like, I've told some people, it not that she's having tubes put in. It's that it's Alli Claire. She's never been normal to react to anything normal... Her pediatrician has commented on occasion that she doesn't present normal symptoms and tends to be a little difficult to diagnose. So with that said, I don't anticipate any problems, but this is AC we're dealing with. Just pray something weird doesn't happen to complicate things and that all goes as planned.

On another note... Martin finished his leg of the relay Sunday and finished it in record time (for him). He did great as did Graisi Saturday during her last mile of her marathon.

We're getting ready to go for Graisi's handbell lessons, dinner and AC and I are coming home to hopefully get in bed early tonight. Martin will meet G at church and they'll come home together. Don't cha just love juggling schedules and kids??

Friday night at McWane's

Last night, we had another camp-in at the McWane Center for our Girl Scout troop :o) I will say, this one was much better than the 3 previous ones Graisi and I have participated in. It wasn't crowded and the activities didn't last as long. We actually had a fun time. Three parents took the first 3 activities and another set of three took the next set. So, even the adults had a few minutes of free time to ourselves!! Yea for us!

The kids had a great time making homemade paper, bubble wands and crystals from salt and sugar, etc. The IMAX movie was also very good. It was a little "1986" but it was still good and entertaining for all practical purposes.

Alli Claire and Martin had a "Daddy-Daughter" night. He met me there and we exchanged AC. He said she stopped screaming about I-459 ... but was a perfect angel afterwards. They went and ate our usual BBQ on Friday nights and came home and settled in for the night. When we got home he did mention that she got up at 6:45am this morning!! At least we got to sleep until 7am! LOL!! Poor Martin

Have I mentioned Martin is running in the Mercedes Marathon next weekend? He's taking a 6 mile leg of of the 26 mile course. There's four of them running it and his boss, Bill, is taking the first leg and continuing on to complete the whole thing. Bill ran his first marathon at Disney back in December and coerced Martin into running in this one :o) He ran 5 miles this morning and did it fairly quickly... I was impressed. And, just in case you're wondering... Shelli don't run just because! Let's just get that out there right now. If you see me running, you had better take off too, because something bad is behind me and trust me, I will not be an easy catch! I will pass you.... Mama CAN run when she needs to. I kid NOT!

Graisi is doing very well wearing her headgear and her ortho appt last week was good. Her open bite has closed nicely but will close completely when she gets her braces, hopefully in March.

Alli Claire is doing well potty training. Tuesday when Martin had her home she called me at work and told me she'd pooped out a "ha-dog". She said, "It big Mommy!" Right out of the mouths of babes!....

My little bow finder

This morning Alli Claire pitched a fit getting ready and refused to let me put her hair in a ponytail. I do this to keep her bows from falling out of her hair. Needless to say, she didn't get a ponytail and I knew the bow wouldn't stay in for long but took her to church like that anyway. Martin went to get her after services were over and brought her to me. NO BOW! I meant I was not leaving church without the bow. We've lost pacifiers, cups, coats, etc. I wasn't leaving anything else for someone else to claim. I went back to her classroom and told the teachers that she'd lost her bow and they assured me they'd looked for it and must have gotten put in someone else's bag. They said, "They'll bring it back next week." Uh... no they won't. Been there... done that! At that point, I "informed" the teachers that I was coming into the classroom to find the infamous bow. See, they don't like for parents to come into the classrooms :o) It's a safety issue and I understand that. But they apparently don't know me or my mission to find the bow. I went in and started looking and then realized I was wasting my time. I bent down to Alli Claire's level and made her look at me. I asked, "Alli Claire, where is your bow". She said, "I take it out my hair." I asked, "When you took it out of your hair, where did you put it?" She mumbled something I didn't understand and I asked her to show me where she'd put it. She took my hand and led me to the toy kitchen, removed the sink and there it was!!! The teachers were amazed. I know my baby may not speak well, but she's smarter than any kid I've ever met, Graisi included! All you have to do is ask her what you're looking for or what you want her to do. She'll get it done!