My Cleaning Ladies

I think I'm going to have to fire my cleaning ladies. They didn't really get anything clean and they really goofed around a lot...

Happy Campers

We survived our first week of summer camp (day care). Livi's teacher said she did great yesterday and didn't cry at all (with the exception of drop-off time). This morning when we woke up, Juli said she wanted to do something after school. When I told her there was no school today she got very upset and cried because "everyone is going to miss her", lol.

Livi-osaurus

I picked up another dinosaur at school today. This time it was a Livi-osaurus.

Juli-saurus

I picked up a Juli-saurus today from school. She was quite proud of her dinosaur mask. She told me that they were playing a game where they had to catch the other dinosaurs and her best friend was the same dinosaur as her. She also told me they ate leaves like dinosaurs did. I asked her if they ate real leaves (thinking maybe they had lettuce or something). She said no, just fake ones. LOL I have no idea what they did, but she seemed to have a really good time at school today.

I Wanna Be a Big Girl!

For the last few weeks Livi has been starting to fight me when I put her in the high chair. Around dinner time she comes into the kitchen and says "eat eat" but when I go to put her in the high chair she freaks out. So I decided to put a booster seat at the table so she could sit with us.

As you can see, she is as happy as a clam eating dinner with the family.

My little "big girl" brought home her first school work. It is dinosaur week at school. Here is Livi's dinosaur:

Happy Blogiversary!

Blueberry Kisses is one year old today!

Livi Started School

Livi started school on Monday. Both her and Juli are now going full time. Livi did great the first day! I took them in, Juli went into her classroom when she saw her friends and didn't look back.

I took Livi to her classroom and lifted her over the baby gate. She kind of looked at me like "what are you doing?" but a little boy and a little girl came over to greet her. The little girl just kept saying "Hi" over and over again. LOL Her teacher also came over and gave her a toy. She started to play with the toy so I went to her cubby to put away all of her stuff. I went back to her classroom to drop off her diapers and wipes and she was further in the room playing with her new friend Katelyn.

I left and dropped Juli's stuff in her cubby. On my way out I peeked in the other window of Livi's class and she was on a pretty cool spin toy (think old school playgrounds with the round thing that you could ride around on) and Katelyn was pushing her around. The two were giggling up a storm. That made it much easier for me to leave her!

The teachers said she did really good and went down for a nap well too. She was a little grumpy after nap because she didn't want to get up from her nap. It's an adjustment since she is used to taking more than one nap a day.

This is the only picture I was able to take of her. I had too much stuff coming and going to the car to take a picture! She is in a bathing suit because it was a water play day at school, they change them into regular clothes after the water activities.

Little Drummer Girl

I took this picture of Livi yesterday before we went to Aunt Jenn's.

Juli being silly at Aunt Jenn's.

Rock on, Rockstar!

Mahpartments

Today the girls were going to hang out at Aunt Jenn's "mahpartment" so that I could get rid of some of the dust and grime left behind by the HVAC guys. Juli told me she really likes Aunt Jenn's mahpartment. She wanted to know why we don't live in a mahpartment. I told her because we live in a house.

She thought about it for a while and then told me that when she gets bigger she is going to get a mahpartment with Katelyn. LOL

My gosh, I am SO not ready to think about that!!

Livi Update

The night after the ER, Livi slept pretty fitfully. Her temperature went up pretty high again around the times that she was due for her medicine. Once she had the meds it came down to a pretty manageable level. She ate a little, drank a lot and even found some time to play yesterday.

Here she is with her new obsession, stackers.

*Don't mind the quality of the pictures, they are from my cell phone.*

After eating a little lunch she wanted to go out in the yard. I guess that was too tiring for her as she fell asleep in her Pooh ride. LOL

As of last night she was doing much better. She had a lower grade fever before bed. I gave her Motrin and she did not want to go to bed in her crib, so I laid her in my bed. She fell right asleep and woke up this morning without any fever at all!

Livi's ER visit

On Wednesday Livi started to run a fever. Right around lunch time it was a low grade fever, so I thought maybe it was her teeth bothering her. It crept up a little higher as the afternoon went on. My mom gave her Tylenol and by the time I got home from work it was low again. She sat at the little table we have and ate dinner and was then running around and playing.

I had somewhere to go with my mom and Karen, so Denise came down to keep an eye on Livi so I didn't have to take her with me. I dropped Juli off with Joseph so she could play with Katie and to keep those two away from Livi just in case she was getting sick.

At about 8pm Denise called me and told me that Livi had just woke up and her fever was 105.5. She had already called the pediatrician and got the on-call doctor from their partner group. He recommended that she take her to the ER to get it checked out.

I met Denise at the Emergency Room, ironically we pulled into the parking lot from opposite directions at the same exact time! We double parked and I ran over to get Livi. As soon as Denise pulled her out of the car and handed her to me, she vomited all over both of us. I'm sure they could smell us coming. It was horrible!

Once we got into the ER, they ran a bunch of tests and gave Livi motrin to bring down her fever. The tests were horrible. Livi cried hysterically the whole time, breaking my heart. She was good though. Although she was crying, she did lay still and let them do what they needed to do. After getting the blood and urine sample, they needed to do a chest x-ray to make sure everything was okay in there. They brought the x-ray machine into the room and sat the bed up. They told me to sit Livi on the bed with her back against what I assume was the x-ray films. I sat her down and she started to cry. The x-ray tech said to her, "Oh no sweetie, we're just going to take a picture." To which Livi replied, "Cheese."

She took a nap while we waited for the results. Right before the pediatrician came in she woke up and drank a whole glass of water. The pediatrician came in blowing bubbles and Livi perked up a little.

The test results came back fine. All of her counts were fine, no urinary tract infection. The fevers seemed to be just a virus. We were told to take her home and rotate Tylenol and Motrin and do lots of fluids.

This picture is from my camera phone. Denise took another picture with my camera, but I haven't taken them off yet.

I have a few "Thank yous" to make:

• Cici - Thanks for your quick call to the pediatrician and for hanging out with us at the hospital.
• Uncle Joe - for keeping Juli busy with Katie and getting her ready for bed.
• Uncle Frankie - for picking up Nonna and Karen where I left them.
• Nonna - for bringing Juli home and getting her to bed.

Father's Day 2008

To wrap up our fun Father's Day weekend, we went over to Denise & Joseph's for a BBQ. The girls had a ton of fun as usual. Our camera didn't last long after the exciting night last night, so we only got a few shots and none of the fathers and their girls.

The girls loved eating dinner at Katie's picnic table. Especially Livi, she kept picking food off of the other girls' plates!

After dinner, the girls took a ride on their "ship". Livi got the helm for a little while, but mostly Katie was the captain of that boat!

Juli practiced her balancing skills.

For some reason, this picture cracked me up. Is she 3 or 30?

Best Friends.

More pictures can be found on Denise & Joseph's blog.

Days When the Rains Came...to the Jimmy Buffett Concert

For Father's Day, Denise & I surprised Joseph & James with tickets to the Jimmy Buffett concert. James has been on the boat EVERY single time Jimmy Buffett has come anywhere near the Philly/NY area. We originally missed the tickets as it sold out immediately. I guess it was meant to be since Denise came across tickets a few weeks ago and they were awesome seats (Row 17 in section C right on the field in front of the stage).

We put on our tropical gear (we were VERY tame compared to some of the people we saw) and headed to Citizens Bank Ballpark for the show.

We grabbed something to eat at the ballpark and made our way to our seats! The seats were great! We just knew it was going to be an awesome time!

James took a picture of me taking a picture of Joseph and Denise. Good thing, because otherwise I would only have the next picture of them!

The Year of Still Here Tour

Having fun listening to G. Love and Special Sauce.

And then the rains came... (not sure who that guy is or why he was posing for my picture! LOL).

We headed to higher ground since Jimmy's appearance was postponed a little while due to the thunderstorms. It didn't really matter, we were already SOAKED.

We hung out on the upper levels for a little while, had a drink and headed back down to the field.

We got to our seats just in time for Jimmy to take the stage.

It looks kind of far here, but it was really awesome in person.

The screens sort of shorted out or something during the rain, see all the black squares on the screen?

I think Joseph and James had a pretty good time too!

Hopefully we will get to do it again sometime!

More pictures on Denise & Joseph's blog.

Dinner with Mom Mom V.

Mom Mom V. came up for Joseph's high school graduation. We didn't make it to the party since I had a surprise in store for James for Father's Day, so we took Mom Mom out to dinner on Friday night. After we took her back to Aunt Mary and Uncle Ricky's house we remembered to take some pictures with her before she headed back to Florida. They are pretty self-explanatory.





We had a great time. Livi even let Mom Mom take her out of her carseat and carry her into the restaurant and out of the car again at the house. Mom Mom should consider herself lucky, Livi is very particular about who she goes with!

Dinner and Dancing

We went out to dinner with Grandma tonight. The girls had a good time until we left the diner and left behind Juli's spaghetti. A royal meltdown ensued because she wanted to take her spaghetti home with her, but she didn't tell us that IN the diner. So, that part was REALLY fun!

Juli making a really bad "cheese" face!

Livi wanting more mashed potatoes.

I ordered chicken croquettes with mashed potatoes. I figured that would be a good thing to share with Livi. She absolutely loved them. After each bite she would hum and dance. Luckily James thought to whip out the camera and take a video!

Sesame Place 6.11.08

Today we took advantage of our season passes and went back to Sesame Place. Juli couldn't wait to get back there! We all had a blast! It wasn't too hot, the heat wave had just broken a few days before, so it was really the perfect time to go!

Here is Juli coming out of the Teeny Tiny Tidal Wave Pool.

James & Juli on the lazy river.

Livi is playing in Ernie's Water Works (at least that's what I think it was called).

This is Elmo's Rocket Ship (or something like that, lol). You can barely see Juli, she is at the very end to the left and I am next to her. She LOVED this ride. She told me it was so much fun and it went SO high that she could see everything. Then she said, "and Mommy, I was only a little bit nervous." LOL

Juli scaled this mountain with NO problems! She didn't slide down as fast as some of the other kids since her bathing suit (or her bathing soup as she calls it) was a little damp and she kept sticking to it.

Livi was excited to be back in the play pit and able to run around freely with the other kids.

After the play pit, we checked out the little playground area. Livi was LOVING the slide. Check out the static in her hair!!

Juli is on the air balloon ride. She went on with James and they waved to me from way up high. She thought that was pretty cool.

Of course we had to go back so Juli could do the lazy river again. We were afraid she was going to fall asleep, she looked so cozy!

Last but not least, Juli wanted to do the roller coaster. So off we went. I put a little arrow on the picture where we were sitting. She LOVED it and wanted to know why we didn't go around again!

Hopefully we will be able to go back soon!

Campground Ladies Sing Your Song, Doo-dah...

Juli and Livi went down the campground with Nonna and Pop. I swiped these pictures off of my mom's shutterfly that she sent to me, so they aren't the best quality. I couldn't get some of them to save right, so here are the ones I did get.

Beach Bums

Livi wishing she was in the lake?

Look at those lifeguards!

Livi napping on her little futon.

Juli in the lake.

The girls love it there and can't wait to go back!