Harvest Party at School

 This morning we had Jack's Harvest Party at school.  Harvest because it is a religious school, FYI.  Below is the woman of the hour, in all her bumblebee glory.  She isn't super happy because after not giving a crap what she would be for Halloween for a month, she decided she wanted to be a cow last minute. 

 Eeks, right?  Well, I already decided to recycle last year's costume bc her memory is foggy about it, at best.  Also, it's fairly simple.  And she got to wear patent leather shoes, so..... win win.

Below is her class pic. 

 Here is her facial expression (Btw- the construction man is Kyle, her bff):

A little bit less overwhelmed, below:

 Group shot.  Hilly was a duck.

 There were craft activity tables.  I did not know what to expect, but expectations were low.  I was wrong.  A whole table of fall themed stickers.  2 year olds LOVE stickers.  I secretly kind of wanted to make my own fall scene with those stickers.

 The girls were beat from our 35 minutes of Halloween activity.  Below is what happened before lunch and naps:

Jim has some awesome pics I am going to steal.  His phone takes much better pictures than mine.

We survived.  It actually turned out to be not that big a deal, thankfully.  We didn't even lose power!  The wind in the middle of the night was pretty scary, though, so we did end up moving the girls downstairs to sleep in pack-and-plays in the living room, but it wasn't so bad that we were forced to the basement.  I surveyed the neighborhood this morning and only saw one tree down.  Lots of branches down, pretty much everywhere, but small ones.

Anyway, below is tree that fell in our neighborhood.  It was a big one, over near Rockford Park.  Luckily it fell towards the park instead of towards the house it fronted.

The Brandywine River was raging this morning.  Lots of people made their way down to check out the rapids once the statewide driving prohibition was lifted.  Below are some photos of Breck's Mill (the big stone building on the left side of the river in the first picture (obscured by trees etc.) and Walker's Mill (across the river).  You can see that the water is nearly to the top of the millrace door of Walker's Mill (can't think of a better word for it - the place where the millrace water empties back into the river after driving the water wheels).  Normally you can see a whole arched "doorway" there, at least 7 or 8 feet high.  So the river is quite a bit higher, and rougher, than usual.  Both mills were used for textile manufacturing, and built in the early 1800s.  Walker's Mill is said to be one of the most photographed buildings in Delaware, so it's fitting that I took several more pictures of it this morning than probably were necessary to show how wild the river was this morning. In the first and last picture, you can also see how much wider the river is than usual... those trees that are at least a few feet underwater are normally a few feet from the river's edge.

I took a short video that shows (for anyone familiar with the Brandywine River) just how much wilder it is after the storm... hopefully it has sound...  seriously, the Brandywine is normally a pretty gentle, meandering creek... deep enough to go tubing or canoeing on, but shallow enough that you'll never be more than waist deep in the water.  And when I say deep enough to go tubing or canoeing on, I mean the type of tubing or canoeing that involves a floating cooler of beer, as opposed to the type of tubing or canoeing that requires helmets and, say, the ability to swim in case anything goes wrong. 

Anyway, we're all thankful to be safe and sound.

Let me preface this by saying I have no idea what I'm doing.  I'm going to type something, I'm going to press publish, but I have no clue what form the finished product will take.  So bear with me.

As everyone knows, we're in the middle of, or soon will be in the middle of, a hurricane of epic proportions.  Sandy.  Frankenstorm.  Whatever you choose to call it, I call it a tremendous pain in the butt.  I've been running around like a lunatic all day setting up tarps along our foundation to prevent water from getting into the basement (where we'll be camping out during the peak of the storm, which is (we are told) in about 2 or 3 hours).  Below is a picture of a fairly sophisticated tarp system I erected, complete with bowline knots (from my sailing days at summer camp), sand bags (or in this case a leftover mulch bag... you can't see it, but it's there), and in back left corner what you may recognize as our dog poop can.  Nice.  Desperate times, right?  Hopefully the sheer mass of golden/beagle dump will be enough to keep the tarp down.  An unfortunate side effect of this sort of tarp contraction is that when the wind really picks up, it acts like a sail.  Hopefully my bowlines will hold.  If they don't, we may have a can full of turds flying through our back yard, hopefully away from the house.

Side story, unrelated to the storm.  Today Michelle was cooking Jackie some chicken nuggets.  Jackie asked me to put her in her high chair (really Hilly's high chair at this point, but sometimes Jackers regresses).  I was busy running around storm-prepping and didn't oblige her request.  A few minutes later I hear Jackers say something along the lines of "Dada, I'm up."  I turned around to find that she had somehow monkeyed her way up and into the high chair on her own.  She was very proud of herself.  See below.

Anyway, we're expecting a long night.  In the basement.  All six of us.  Yes, it's gonna be interesting. 

PSA

I invited Jim to be a blogger on this blog.  You might find yourself reading about Hurricane Sandy in real time.

Home

 Jim and I had a great time in Chicago and made it back on probably the last flight from Chi-town to Philly.  It was delayed first a half hour, then an hour, then longer.  I was miserable and was sure it would be delayed, but we took off only about 1.25 hours after scheduled.  Seriously, I have to give Jim props- my whining was out of control.

But we made it home to our girls who had a great time with Gma!  I told Jack it was bath time last night as she danced around the living.  She stopped and looked at me and said, "But I dancing!"  When she realized her bath was for real she said, "I want my Grandma!" 

The girls just woke up and I am busy preparing for the possibility of days and days without electricity or running water.  I don't know how electricity is tied to running water or if our gas heat will be affected or how that works out.  Sigh.  The things they don't teach you in school. 

Our biggest candle and slowest burning candle is the Jesus candle I bought at the Superfresh in Philadelphia on sale 5 years ago.  We also have a wind-up flashlight from Rodney.  2 of 'em.  And the rest are fancy, overpriced scented candles.  As our basement fills with water, we will be smelling banana bread throughout the house.

Getting By

 So as you all probably know, I twisted some sort of back muscle and basically paralyzed myself at 4AM on Monday morning and as a result I am effing miserable and in pain.  To compound matters, Jim is at a lawyer thing in NYC (he kindly offered to cancel, but it was an important thing)- so I am braving the frontier of doing the parenting thing alone.  With 2 children who demand to be held, often at the same time.  With a bad back.  I am miserable and doing everything in my power not to be short with the girls.  Jax often puts up a fuss about walking into pre-school so I often carry both of them in (no wonder my back gave out)- I was really worried about drop off.  So Jax was pissed that I made her wear her awesome Polo vest and boots.  I got Hilly out of the car and said, 'Okay, let's walk in.'  Jack sat on the grass in silent protest.  Since I truly cannot carry both girls at this time, I just took deep breaths and let her sit there.  Then we saw Neil walking n with his mom.  I feel like everybody likes Neil.  So I said very sweetly, "Look, Jack.  There's Neil!  Let's go play with him."  It was like God intervened: She simply stood up, brushed off her knees, grabbed my hand, and we walked in.  Also, I just generally had a bad morning.  I sold an Ann Taylor shirt on ebay and brought it w me to take to the post office- I spilled some water on it from Jack's sippy cup that she has to take to school.  I had forgotten to put the little rubber stopper in it that prevents it from spilling.  Of course the spot wouldn't dry- like, at all.  And I also forgot to bring the dress I will be wearing to the wedding on Saturday- all my dresses need to be dry-cleaned.  So there was that. And the dogs were just so demanding this morning.  Retrieving all kinds of crap, barking to be let out, barking to be let in, barking to bark. 

Ok, I'm done venting.  Can I just say that NONE of this would normally get me down except that my back really really hurts?  I have a call into the doctor for either stronger muscle relaxers or stronger pain meds.  I miss the old me!!!!  Annie is my good friend and Jackie's godmother and her sister is 34 with 3 kids and fighting breast cancer.  She has a blog that I read to make me realize how lucky I am right now that all I have is a twisted back muscle.  So this has helped me relax and get in touch with reality.  Thanks, Barb!

Onto my girls:  Aunt Katie, Uncle Aaron, Nick, Finley and Griffin sent the girls these Magna-Tiles.  Jax and I have been building things for hours for the past few days.  Her imagination is really fun these days.  Last night we sat on her huge stuffed animals and pretended we were driving while jamming out to the Silver Jews (her musical choice, not mine).  She pretended we saw kitty cats and dogs crossing the street, trees changing colors, stop signs, stop lights, the works. The video above is Jax singing Tennessee by the Silver Jews.

Below is Hilly sitting on our new chair without a pony tail in.  My friend Smod asked if we had a stylist cut her hair that way. 

 Below are the girls on Monday night watching Caillou: Note how Hilly is holding Jackie's toes.  If Hilly would let go, Jax would wiggle her toes to Hilly to get Hilly to hold onto them again.

 I said I'd never dress my girls in animal print, but there was something about this cheetah shirt that screamed "Hillers."  So today she's dressed like Snooki from Jersey Shore. 

 Also, yesterday Hilly got her first time out ever.  She was pulling Jackie's hair.  She was NOT happy.  But doesn't she look adorbs all angry in her high chair.  HILLY!

Parade pics

 Above is a pic of Jax watching the parade with Grandpa- she switched between Grandpa and Nana the whole time.  Majorettes walked by and he said to Jax, 'I can do that.' a few times.  A majorette apparently threw her baton really high and caught and Jax said to Gpa, 'I can do that.'  She is no dummy!

Below are my girls getting ready to leave for parade.

 Below is Jackie's beautiful drawing of Gma D. 

 Below, Jax and Dada at parade.

 Below is proof that my 2nd born is cute as a button- as if I needed to offer any proof. 

I have at least 2 more pics of parade on Jim's phone.  Jax sat in between Con-man and Park before it began.  This morning en route to Target she said to me, 'I want my cousins!' 

Recap

 Above is a pic of Hilly showing Pops a toy last Sunday evening while Jax digs in the toy box. 

 This group of scantily clad photos is from Friday- it was rainy, so I thought we should give potty training a go.

 See below for the fruits of my labor.  Jax would rather try to clip her own toenails than use her duck potty.  Hillers doesn't feel that way at all.

 Jackie told me on Friday, 'No more little cups for me ever again.'  The big girl cup she is drinking from is from Gma E's house- old school big bird.

 Jim put his foot down and demanded we give Jax a pillow in her crib.  We checked on her about a million times and I am proud to say that thus far she has survived.

 Early this week, Hilly enjoying some mac and cheese. 

 Thursday was school picture day.  Jax wore the outfit below.  The pics were going to be outside, so I wanted to dress her warmly but nicely.  Why couldn't the pics just have been inside? I would've put her in a dress.

 Grandma D-ster came with me to pick her up at school and she gave her a grand tour of her classroom.  She pointed out the kitchen, the books, pictures, etc... She was SO happy.  Then we went to Ruby T's to eat. I love it there and Jim has always refused to go.  His loss.

 Before bed, the girls and dogs snuggled w Gma D-ster. 

 Below, new feet pajamas from Gma.  She woke up Fri morning and told Jim "Grandma had to leave to go to work."

On Friday, Jax and Hannie watching Dada leave for work. 

We attended the great halloween parade in a-town last night.  Jim pretends to hate it, but I know he freaking loves it.  I know all my cousins love it because every year there is pretty much perfect attendance.  One year Jim and I had a wedding in Carmel, CA and we couldn't make it and I was really upset.  Anyway, it did not disappoint.  Hillers and Jax stayed awake for the entire parade.  I broke open the bottle of apple cinnamon homemade Dutch wine I won at the family reunion and I think we all agree that it was the freaking bomb.  One sip and you become authentically Dutch.  I am going to buy extra raffle tickets next reunion so I can be sure to win another bottle.  Anyway, I have cute pics from this event that I will post tomorrow.

No, No!

Hillers has started to shake her head "no" to accompany her "no, no, no!"

Ok, here is part of our weekend recap.

New feet pajamas "like Hilly" for Jax.  She was happy as anything in them and, proud to announce, they are size 2T!!!!!  Go Jax!  Somebody be growing.

 The girls have been playing together like crazy lately and, let me tell you, it is awesome.  As I type, they are sitting behind me "building a castle" out of our laundry basket. 

 Below, picking up Dada from work.

 Saturday the girls and I got pumpkins and ice cream with Smod.  Sunday morning Jax painted her pumpkin.

 And she also painted my pumpkin. 

 Sunday afternoon we went to my friend's son's 5th birthday party. She wanted clothes for him, so I got to pick out a shirt for a boy!  I picked out a blue and white striped button down from Osh Kosh.  Boy clothes are so much easier to choose. Again, the girls played together happily in the yard and on a slide. Made me almost wish they were even closer in age.  I am so happy they have each other.