A Very Merry Un-Snapshot

Well I dropped the ball on June's Monthly Snapshot.  July snuck up on me and I've been trying to deal with Caroline turning one and Emily turning four; the parties, doctor visits, and milestones that go along with those birthdays... to say it's been a little hectic would be a colossal understatement.

So this post is going to be a complete random rambling of whatever I can think that may have happened recently...K? K!

Caroline turned ONE on July 1.  Her birthday party is this Saturday.  

Emily turns FOUR on July 13 (this Sunday) and her birthday party is Friday night (we are doing a bounce-house type party for her and a few of her friends).

Caroline had her one year check up on her birthday (7/1) even though the nurse said not to make her appointment on her birthday because she doesn't like giving shots on kids' birthdays.  Well, we had to schedule it for that day because she ended up needing ear tubes and her surgery was scheduled for that Thursday.  Plus, I don't think Caroline would have cried any less had the shots been given a day or two after her birthday as opposed to on the special day...

I had it in my head that we had to go out to dinner to celebrate Caroline's birthday -- even though we were going to have a party, it wasn't for 10 days -- so we went to Red Robin (because I had a coupon for free dessert!) and proceeded to have the most stressful dinner out ever.  Caroline was pissed off for some reason; Emily was being... Emily.  And the tables there slide all over the floor so every time we accidentally leaned against the table (to, oh I don't know, pick up one of Caroline's toys that she was constantly throwing on the floor) it slid out from under us.  Our waitress kept forgetting about us; and actually TOLD us that she forgot about us.  And a World Cup game was on so every few minutes everyone in the bar screamed at the top of their lungs when there was a great save or a close call.  

But look at this face.  Come on.

Caroline did great with her ear tube surgery.  Me? Not so much.  It was the hardest thing to watch her struggle with the sedation mask and kick and scream and cry and then all of a sudden and ever so unnatrually go limp with her eyes rolling back in her head.  Ugh.  But she came out of it great.  She didn't cry very much at all afterwards; just drank her bottle, ate her bagel and off we went... 

Before: 

After: 

So the afternoon after her surgery, we drove down to my sister's.  She lives next to a fireman's carnival that does fireworks every July 4, and she was having a family/friends cookout & fireworks watching party.  Friday morning we took the big girls (Emily & her cousin Abby) to the mall to play/walk/run off some steam since Caroline was trying to nap and they were NOT trying to be quiet.  Then we went to pick up some firewood and when we were in the Lowes' outdoor area the girls found this little bench and I turn around to see this:

They don't love the camera at all....*cough*

Caroline loves her some Aunt Sara :)

And also Aunt Sara's phone.

We had a fun couple days -- Emily burned her nose on a sparkler and stuck her hand in the bonfire to retrieve a glow stick bracelet... clearly I overestimated her readiness for certain fourth of July festivities.  She's fine -- her hand wasn't hurt because good old Uncle Stan acted quickly and snatched her away from the fire -- and her nose has a little scab that is healing well.  She loved the fireworks... and did a running commentary on each color that appeared in the sky and thought it was hilarious when I said one was a "dud" (so she kept saying "dud! hahahahah!" over and over).  

Needless to say, she was a little worn out from all the excitement:

Yep, that's ketchup on the corner of her mouth.

So this week I've been going crazy trying to get last minute things together for the two parties.  Ordered a cake for Emily's party:

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Balloons for Caroline's party, tons of paper products, candles, cake mix, stickers, juice boxes, etc.  I got some pretzels, almond bark, and sprinkles to make my version of these (mine will be packaged as favors for the kids at Emily's party): 

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Also, yesterday I made a giant leap and tossed out (recycled) all but one (just in case) of Caroline's bottles.  

She is on whole milk as of a few days ago, and does great with a sippy cup.  She hadn't been finishing her bottles for the last month or so, and I'm almost positive that getting rid of the bottles was harder on me than it was on her.  I am so happy to not be buying formula... that part wasn't all that sad.  I did take a picture of the last empty formula container... why?  Who knows.

Phew.  I don't even know what this post is about, let alone what it was supposed to be about.  But that's kind of how life has been the past couple weeks, and I like to capture moments here on the blog so that I can go back years from now and read about how crazy I was to have two birthday parties instead of just one... and remember how much fun it is to have a crazy, whirlwind of a life.  

And just because I don't feel like this post is QUITE random enough, here's a picture of a picture of Emily in a whale.  She made it at daycare.  Why?  Who knows.