to hold you over....

i am drowning over here under housework, massage therapies and HUGE deadlines---unfortunately the blog is the last thing on my list of things "to-do".

so just a quick update until i have more time.

this week has been crazy busy. i owe a ton of people emails and phone calls---don't give up on me.

here's the run down....

we had a short, but wonderful visit with "grammy at the beach" and papa (aka: doug's parents). ashlyn was so thrilled to get to go to the hotel and swim in the cold pool and relax in the hot pool. emma, i think she is a fish. that girl looooooooves water---so different from ashlyn at that age. you should have seen her drenched diaper. i forgot the camera, but it sure was a sight to see. they were also over to the house on halloween night to see the girls dressed up and visit for a while. ashlyn was so very sad when they left! they both sure do love all their grammies and papa's.

here's ashlyn in one of her costumes.


and emma.


as for me, i have been designing scrapbooking classes for one of the manufacturers that i work for that they will be teaching in Brazil---how cool is that?! man, i love my job! anywho.....i had to design 10 pages along with instructions and powerpoint presentations in 7 days----eeek! my deadline for mailing the layouts was yesterday and i made it to the UPS store just in the nick of time. add all that on top of normal house chores like my mt. everest laundry pile, taking care of two rambunctious kiddos and one BIG kid and this girl is exhausted!

ashlyn has been home from school all week so we could focus on consistency with her therapy. she is doing much better and even seems to know just when she needs a massage and when she doesn't. there are days that we don't do them every 2 hours only because she says she doesn't want one. and fighting with her to make her do it is not helpful to the whole purpose of the massage therapy in the first place. so we just go about her day and try again in a hour or so. we are still waiting to hear when our first occupational therapy appointment will be scheduled. they said we may be on a waiting list for a month.

emma, well, she is into EVERYTHING! she has such a sweet innocent disposition about her making it entirely difficult to be firm and discipline when all i want to do is crack up laughing.
unlike ashlyn was, she is a climber, she loves to make graffiti on my walls, doors, countertops-----and even herself. let me back up by giving some history. you see above that i used a black eyebrow pencil to mark her face for her costume. later in the evening, she found the pencil and decided to make her whole right cheek solid black while inconspiciously watching cartoons. no biggie. she already had it on her face from me, it's washable, yada, yada. well, i never in a million years thought that she'd try to do it herself any other time. 'tis true, they learn by example. duh!

let me preface this by saying, by order of the man of the house, we disposed of all markers. they are banned from the house until further notice. buuuuuuuuuut, somehow, miss ornery found a black permanent marker and decided to express herself with some body art again. oh my......she was sooooooooooo proud of herself! and again, i was just sitting there cracking up and snapping away while she kept saying "cheeeeeeeese." it was hysterical.



TIP OF THE DAY: to remove permanent marker from your body, baby wipes work wonders. the wipes will remove the majority. for the rest, a rag soaked with some rubbing alcohol and you are good to go!

until next time.....be good.