Bad Apples!

 Didn't Snow White learn the first time about not eating poisonous apples. Obviously she didn't get the memo for styrofoam apples either because someone with only a few teeth took a big ole bite out of my fake apple this morning!

Geez! I knew the kid loves dirt and dog food.... but now styrofoam apples... yuck!

Speaking of adorable lil snow white, this week her 'lovie lamb' has been BABY! She has carried this thing around with her all week hugging it and squeezing it and saying over and over BayBeeeee!! Holdyn was VERY attached to his lovie lamb from a very young age. This is the first time she has really shown interest in it, and they have been inseperable the past few days!  

Holdyn with his lovie lamb when he was a baby.

He is now all grown up!

We went to the park today....

to swing....

and to work on our basketball skills....

the white boy might need a ladder!

but he sure is a GREAT big brother!

Poision Control 101

 I have always kept an 'emergency' list on the side of our fridge. Mainly for whenever we have babysitters over so I don't have to write down our phone number every single time we leave the kids. It has our address on it (if the house catches fire or something so the babysitter could tell the fire trucks where to come.. ya know...besides firefighter Holdyn, of course!) and the names and phone numbers of both sets of grandparents 'just in case' we couldn't be reached. I thought my emergency list was complete... besides the normal 911 that everyone knows. Boy was I wrong! I have always seen shows on T.V. where parents have had to call poison control. I always told myself "Well I don't need to know the number to poison control because my kid would never....." haha! A few days ago I learned my lesson and poison control's phone number is now an addition to our emergency list. If you ever get hungry and don't have much food in the house, I am proud and honored to inform you that you can look in other places than your pantry for your afternoon snack and you will be perfectly fine..... Just ask my 15 month old!

I walked in the kitchen to find Hadley eating a Cascade gel pack. One of those that has the gel and the powder in the little packets. She had the white grit and powder all around her mouth and she was holding the half missing gel packet looking at me like, this is pretty good! I immediately cleaned her up and grabbed the container and of course it says if eaten to call poison control. I had no clue how to call them. After a quick google search and a nice lady at the poison control center, I was told that she would be perfectly fine and she might be extra thirsty and for us to push fluids for that day since we didn't know how much she had injested. We keep all of our cleaning products and 'dangerous' products in the cabinet above the kitchen sink. The dish detergent got stuck below the sink (only for space purposes) but we are sometimes slack about hooking the child lock back on both knobs to keep her out of the cabinets. I guess we need to move that up high or get better about child proofing. Hadley had no side effects and didn't produce any extra bubbles :) Lesson learned!

Speaking of lil miss, as of today, she is officially walking. She has walked 99% of the day. She is a bit wobbly and sways back and forth while she catches her balance (kinda like a drunkin saylor!) but she just about has it down to a T! It is so cute to see how proud Holdyn is of her. He will come running across the house to tell me where she walked and he claps for her and says "Yay baby sister!" She also has learned peek-a-boo and it is just about the cutest thing on this earth. If you say "Where is baby Hadley?" she immediately covers her eyes and starts laughing. She thinks you can't see her then she will throw both of her hands wide open and we say "There she is!" and she just giggles and giggles!

 She still LOVES jewelry. For the longest time now she just OOOOs and COOOOs at anybodys necklace, earrings, bracelet, etc. She will leap in to someones arms if they have a necklace on just so she can get her hands on it! She was walking around the house today and Mr. R asked me did I put the necklace on her that she was wearing. I hadn't. She found it in her toy box and put it on herself and has worn it all day! I hope her future husband is prepared for the expense of her love of jewelry!

 She also has been acting like a crazy baby at meal or snack time. When she is finished eating, she has started hitting herself in the head. She thinks it's funny and she just laughs!

Big boy Holdyn has a new fascination. Don't worry, he is still overly a dedicated fireman. He has now traded in Curious George, Bob the Builder, Sponge Bob, and Max & Ruby for.... Animal Planet. I don't know how he found it, but he knows what buttons on the remote to push to make animal planet come on. That is all he will watch now. 24 hours a day.... 7 days a week! He had a dental appointment this week ( 3rd apt.. no cavities and perfect behavior!) and they have TVs in the rooms. We schedule with the same hygenist everytime (Holdyn we don't do well with change!) and she knew from last cleaning that he liked Curious George. She already had it on the TV for him when he walked in. He was very quick to take the remote from her and inform her that he no longer watched curious george and that he watches animal planet now. He then proceeded to turn the channel himself and hoped up in the big chair. Ms. Jennifer was speechless!! She said "How old are you again?!"

'Pit Boss' is one of the shows that come on animal planet. I honestly have never sat down to watch it, but just from seeing previews I think it's about a little midget man (seriously!) who owns some company that rescues pit bulls? I think! I could be totally wrong. Obviously Holdyn has been learning about Pit Bulls from this show because he came to me yesterday and said " Mommy, when Bay dies, can we get a Bull Pit? Bull Pits are COOL!" A bull pit?! Ohhhh I asked him was it a pit bull. That was it and I told him we will not be current or future owners ever......EVER..... of a pit bull... or a bull pit!

As most of you know, we are right in the middle of moving. We are moving out to Richmond Hill for a good neighborhood for the kids to be safe to play in, and the good public school system (2 things that are hard or impossible to find in Savannah). Holdyn and Hadley will have a safe place to ride their bikes and I am sure meet lots of other kids in the neighborhood we have picked out. Within walking distance they will have a pool, soccer fields, t-ball fields, and basketball courts. We close on our current home on April 19th and will then immediately start building on an awesome lot we have under contract in a good family oriented neighborhood! One very sad thing about leaving Savannah is the little school that Holdyn goes to now, and the school that Hadley was scheduled to start in September. *SIGH* Is it sad that I have gotten attached to my kids school?! Hadley has been going there with me to drop off and pick up Holdyn since she was 2 weeks old! All of the teachers have eagerly waited until she was old enough to come! The director said as soon as she started walking, she could start. I can't tell you how many times in the carpool line the teachers would poke their head in the car and tell her to hurry up and walk cause they were waiting on her to start! It makes me so sad that we are leaving pretty much at the exact time she would be able to start! We have grown so close to his school and all of the staff. I thought I still had a good 4 years with them for Hadley to go through the program. It is the only school Holdyn has ever gone to that he runs in to happy to go. I never once had to drag him in kicking, screaming, and crying like his previous 'school' when I was working full time. The director emailed me this week about him leaving. She might have made me tear up a little bit ok, I might have shed a tear. She sits in the lobby to welcome the children every morning. She told me she is going to miss Holdyn running in every morning showing her which firetruck shirt he had chosen to wear that day. Such a small decision to an adult, but a huge and mood/life changing decision in Holdyns eyes on a daily basis! They don't stick the kids in front of the TV. They don't watch TV. It is 3 hours a day of hands on art, fun, learning, structure, stability, and excitment! He will be finishing out this school year even though we will be in Richmond Hill the last 4-5 weeks of school. It will be a pain but I think it is important for him to finish out the year. It will take me an hour to get there and probably 45 minutes to get home, but I will just stick around in town running errands and probably taking baby sister to the park to walk in the stroller or feed the ducks. Holdyn started when he was 2 years old. I remember on the first day he attended and I went to pick him up. As we were walking out in the hallway, one of the other teachers saw him leaving and said "Bye Holdyn, see you tomorrow!" I was so impressed that he had only been there for a total of 3 hours and all of the teachers and assistants already knew him by name. They are so happy and cheerful when they get him out of the car or put him in the car. They don't have the 'omg I don't want to be at work' attitude. I love(d) the small atmosphere and the outpouring of love and care that that 'family' and community shows and has shown not only for Holdyn, but for our entire family. Anytime we hit a bump in the road, multiple teachers and assistants were always right there asking what they could do to help or let them know and they would help out in any way they could. It makes me so sad to think about the last day of school... I don't even want to think about it right now. I am going to have to bring a box of kleenex to graduation and hide on the back row.

Going forward, we signed Holdyn up for the Lottery Pre-K program through the public school system in Richmond Hill. Even though he is in Pre-K now and will 'graduate', he has to repeat Pre-K due to how his birthday falls. Pretty much, he will always be one of the oldest in his class. You have to turn 5 by September 1st to move on to Kindergarden. He missed the cut off by having a November birthday. Since Pre-K is not a requirement in Georgia (it should be!! They are such sponges at this age and soak up so much learning!) you are not guarenteed a 'spot' like you would be in grades K-12. This school year, the Richmond Hill public school system had enough lottery money for 132 (?) children to attend the Pre-K program. For next year they do not know yet how much lottery funding they will be getting for the Pre-K program next year. The secretary says they might not know till the middle of the summer. Holdyn was drawn #183 for next year. I don't see any huge changes in the budget where they could take many more (or any for that matter... maybe even less) so we are not too optimistic that he will be accepted and registered in the public school system for next year. With that being said, we can't sit around and 'wait'. We need to have a spot reserved for him somewhere. We had a few options and looked around and ended up signing him up for a very similiar environment he is in this year. The only difference is he will go 4 days a week instead of 5. We received his acceptance letter today from RHUMC Pre-K ! Yay!!

It is a relief to know that he will have a spot somewhere. I guess it will be good for one more year of a 'small' environment. Holdyn really thrives with one on one attention. I just hate the thought of him attending 3 schools in 3 years. I know there is nothing we can do about it. All we can do is just prepare him and help him feel comfortable in the new environment. I am sure 99% of the children from the RHUMC Pre-K program will go on to the public school Kindergarden program with him, so that will be good. RHUMC has a ratio of  10 children with 1 teacher and there is a floater that will pop in several times a day if an extra set of hands is needed. I hope we fall in love with this school and have the same feelings as we do now at S.I.P. RHUMC starts at 2 1/2 so Hadley would/will start going not this upcoming school year, but the next (so when Holdyn goes to public school Kindergarden). They will give us the option for her to go 2 or 3 days a week and she would stay through the 4 day a week Pre-K program. Holdyn is my child that NEEDS stability in his life. He does NOT do well with change. The first 2 weeks of the new school year might will be be hell, but once he is comfortable and knows the new routine, and trusts his new teacher, he will become very attached to it. Momma will have high anxiety all summer worrying about it! Hadley is my 'whatever' child. She seems to fly by the seat of her pants and not care at all about routine or stability or who has her! It is so funny/interesting how dramatically different they both are.

Spring is here!

Spring has finally arrived!! Spring in Savannah is good and bad. We have beautiful days but on those beautiful days when we want to play outside, you have to deal with the Savannah gnats. UGH! Those are so tiny it is hard to see them but they will fly all around you and bite you a million times. I think I have special gnat blood because if I stand in a room full of people, no one would get bitten but me. Unfortunately, I think I passed down the gnat blood to Hadley! I H.A.T.E. bug spray and refuse to wear it unless it is a dire situation. I can't stand smelling like it and feeling the 'ookieness'. I sprayed Holdyn and Emma and they ran about fine playing and the gnats stayed away from them. It was so pretty and we wanted to play outside so I gave in and soaked myself in the bug spray... Didn't matter. They still came after me. I seriously put it on 4 or 5 times and I was still trying to get them away!! I coated sprayed Hadley too (It's family low deet stuff so it's ok!) and the gnats still were after her! I sprayed her multiple times and those gnats didn't care. She kept bringing me the can of bug spray and then rubbing her hands in her hair as if she was telling me " Put more in my hair mama they won't stay out!) I sprayed that childs hair so much it was wet. We tolerated it for a little while to play outside on such a pretty day.

This is her first time in the cozy coupe! We pulled it out from Holdyn's younger days and had to give it a good wipe down! She just liked climbing in and out, back and forth!

Messy gnaty bug spray hair gone crazy!

 Wylie came over in his car to check out what Hadley was doing with her car!

Emma and Holdyn having their usual 'car races'! It's so funny to watch them jump in each others car and ride together. Holdyn obviously didn't get my gnat blood. You can spray him once and he can play outside all day. Holdyn is ALWAYS the driver and Emma knows it. She just scoots over cause she knows not to argue with that boy. They are like driving Ms. Daisy... if only their cars had back seats!

A fun afternoon of outside play had to be washed down with some ice cold juice. After a good scrub down in the bubble bath to get all the bug spray off, this little girl was exhausted! Daddy says she still smells like bug spray today. HaHa... just trying to let her have fun outside but had to use our bug protection! Maybe her bath tonight will make her smell better than bug spray! I guess she will have to stay inside more with her gnat blooded mama and only go out when they aren't so bad as they are right now!

St. Patty's Day 2011

Bad Blogger (Waving my hand!).. yes I know. I have been MIA but there has been a lot going on in the Udinsky household. We switched realtors since our original one wasn't doing much and we sold our house in a week with the new agent. We have to be out in a month and had to decide if we were going to buy or build. We decided to build so we had to find a lot, builder, and figure out where we would live and put all of our stuff during the closing of the home and the roughly 4 months it will take to build our new home... on a BEAUTIFUL lot with tons of trees, a great neighborhood for the kids, tons of kids around to play with and  it is on a culdesac of a built out neighborhood with a huge park in the middle of the culdesac that Holdyn can just run his little heart out and dig and find all kinds of treasures! All while this is going on we had already registered both kids for school for next year so we are trying to fixure out how to change all that around and I am having some minor set backs from a little surgery I had (over doing it having to run around like a chicken with its head cut off making all of these future decisions!). Throw all that in the middle of St. Pattys day week and here we are! We have just started slowly packing. I am not supposed to be lifting anything heavy and Robbie fell in the garage and suffered an elbow injury which landed us in the ER Friday night so he has limited range of motion in one of his arms. We are just a basket full of joy around here! We did make it to the parade and had a great time. Last year Holdyn was ready to leave about 10 minutes in to the parade since he had gotten there early and had already waited 2 hours. This year with him being a little older we explained that we had to get down there early to save our 'spot' and the parade wouldn't start for awhile. He had an endless supply of 'spicy drinks' (his orange sodas he likes) and plenty of snacks and he did awesome the entire parade. He was ready to leave at the end though but we still had to make it back to another square where the NYC firemen had brought a fire tshirt just for him! He was SO excited and has been telling everyone about his shirt.

 Pops came over and spent the night before and came to hang out on our square too. Mom stayed home cause she had to get caught up on some work. We didn't bring Hadley since she is still too small and would have missed that crucial morning nap so she stayed home with MooMa and DooDa.

 Holdyn had waited for the firetrucks the whole time! He was ready in his gear! When we saw them coming, Robbie jumped the fence so he could have a better closer up look!

Here is Firemarshall Jim who arranged the big firetruck ride for Holdyn a few ago and his sons are the firefighters who brought Holdyn the shirts from NYC. Holdyn was exhausted and pretty much over with the whole thing at this point!

I am having to change email addresses because of the move and having our cable turned off so as soon as we get that switched over I will send a notification email out. We will be busy here the next few weeks packing and moving most everything to storage then just the basic immediate needs to MawMaw and Pops house then we will get settled and hopefully the more frequent blog posts will return :)

For Lucy....

I was holding Holdyn yesterday during one of his multiple 'melt downs' he has a day. I was holding him and he was snuggling up against me trying to calm down. This sweet little boy looked straight in to my eyes, out of the blue, and said.............

"Mommy, "

"I am going to be YOUR little boy..... FOREVER!!!" 

He is a momma's boy. He knows how to make my heart melt.

After he said that, I immediately thought of Lucy and I hadn't posted about Lucy yet. It's amazing in the 'blogging world' how you feel a connection to each other. I feel like I 'know' these familys I keep up with and read about on a daily basis, and they read about my family on a daily basis. Lucy's world (and her parents and sibilings) has been flipped upside down. In a matter of seconds. It really puts things in to perspective... again. Never take things for granted. You never know what the next year, the next month, the next week, the next day, the next hour, the next minute, or the next second has in store for you.

Be thankful....

for everything in life.... no matter how big or small.

 Be thankful

Please send some extra thoughts and prayers to Lucy and her family. I couldn't imagine being in her mother's shoes right now.

GO LUCY GO!!!

Shocker!

It's me again... the lost dog lady. At least I'm not the purse lady or the cat lady or the lady in the shoe! This dog was found early one morning by Mr. R when he was headed to the airport. He called to warn me so I wouldn't walk out the front door and stumble upon him. He was probably worried I would invite him in for breakfast, just like I do to all of the other lost dogs! This dog was different though. Mr. R tried to walk up to him but he seemed angry and growling so he backed off. 3 hours later and 3 police officers later.. yes, it took THREE... guess they were bored?! the dog is now gone. He refused to leave. You shoulda seen the 100lb skinny white guy trying to go up to the dog and the 300lb black cop 'hiding' behind the skinny guy with his mace in hand. When the dog growled at them, they both came running back to their patrol cars. Wish I had my video camera on them! Dispatch told them not to use mase or a gun but they wanted the officers to wait there in their vehicles until Animal control came on duty since they aren't 'on call' all the time. The officers told dispatch he was going to do what he needed to do if the dog tried to go after him. The cop said they are allowed to use deadly force on cats, but not dogs... Strange.. only in Savannah! Animal Control finally arrived and this was one very unhappy dog. He refused to walk to the truck so the dog was drug through my yard with a long pole. He was a BIG boy! Now momma usually takes in all the stray dogs and tries to help them get home, but now when you are gonna growl at momma, she will not try to help you!! This boy was too angry to try to 'help'. He had a huge black collar on but no tag :( He was obviously someones pet since he was obviously well fed and had a collar. He kinda looks like a third planter on my front porch... ha! Animal Control said they would hold him for 5 days for the owner to come forward. If they didn't come forward, the dog would be put up for adoption.... if it was adoptable. The officer and I both agreed the way the dog was acting, he probably was not adoptable :( Don't know what happened with the outcome but I am loosing count of the number of missing dogs that are crossing my path! He looks tiny in the picture cause this was with my phone and as close as I was getting but he was at least 200+ lbs.

My day....

I know you love hearing about *those* days. When my children are adults, I want them to be able to look back when they are having a bad day with their children and see what a handfull they were!! About 2 weeks ago sister went to big brothers school for a 'trial' day to see if she was ready to start the 1 year old class for 2 days a week. We have her signed up to start in September, but a spot opened up and the director wanted her to start now. Problem is, I had just started slowly weaning that morning nap for her to start in September. I thought the 'trial' day would give us an idea if she could start now or just wait until September. Her day went great. She loved the teachers, kids, the toys, and Holdyn LOVED seeing her on the playground! I was going to think about it for a few days but since she did so go, why not go ahead and let her start. Well that evening she started acting funny. The next morning she had a clear runny nose. I chalked it up to teething because she is getting several in right now. So during the past 2 weeks, the clear runny nose has turned in to a green faucet, a bad fever, goopy eyes, and a raspy conjested cough. Could be a coincidence, but I doubt it. I am assuming she caught a small something at school and it got worse from there. This was her first time for 3 hours straight that she was in a 'group' setting with children her own age. That is why I am a stay at home mom, to keep our kids from constantly getting sick (well one of the many reasons).  I know she will probably get sick when she starts in September, but she will only be going 2 or 3 days a week and we have to give her immune system time to build up and get used to it. When we put Holdyn in full time day care at 9 months old, he was constantly sick. I would go to class and at least get a call once a week to come get him because he had a fever and then couldn't come back until 24 hours after he was fever free, which resulted in momma missing school and no time to study since I was holding and caring for a sick baby, which led to ear tubes at 11 months old. Ok I am getting off topic... so over the weekend Mr. R even said she needed to go to the doctor. Once everything started turning green I was worried that we would end up at the peditricians office. I called first thing Monday morning. We went to pick up Holdyn from school then headed to her appointment. The teachers loves seeing her and they talk to her everyday. When they were putting Holdyn in the car, they said you could tell that she just looked miserable and had droopy eyes like a sad puppy but she still had the energy to give them a big smile. No matter how sick or hurting, that baby smiles 99% of the time! After the diagnosis, this was one sick baby! She has a double ear infection, double eye infection (ooey green stuff coming out... all connected to the sinuses), sinus infection, and bronchitis. WOW. If I would have known that I would have taken her a lot sooner but she didn't act like she was hurting or sick! So now she is on THREE oral medications (fever, cough/congestion, and antibiotic) and eye drops twice a day. This girl does NOT take medication good. She has a nice trick with her tongue and will block it and it all runs out on both sides of her mouth..... we are both then covered in a sticky mess! I started hiding it in her milk cups... I guess with the 3 different kinds mixed together it didn't taste too good so now I am doing only one med in the cup and just forcing fluids all day just to get these meds in her! She is still not herself even after being on meds for 48 hours. She is still very clingy and fussy and has perfected shaking her head 'no' so hard when she doesn't want something, it practically shakes her whole body.. haha! The girl knows what she wants! Being on antibiotics you know what that means... an upset tummy! I put her down for a nap yesterday and had no clue what I was in for when she woke up. About an hour later I heard her 'talking' on the monitor. I went into her dark room and smelt a stinky and I told her ' oh you have a poppy stinky baby sister!' I turned on the light to reach over to get her and BAM. She took off her diaper for the very first time in her life.... and it HAD to be during a time that she is on antibiotics!! There were poop handprints allll over the crib rails. She was covered in poop and so was everything in her bed. Problem was... our new realtor was expected to arrive to take pictures of the house in 30 minutes.... So I knew I had to act fast!! I threw her in the tub to get her in clean clothes and put her down to let her and brother play with their little kitchen.

As I was pulling the sheets and the waterproof pad (yes it was on that too!) I had to pull the crib away from the wall to pull off the back side and I got another surprise.....

I about had a heart attack. As I knelt down trying to decide the best way to clean the wall, the phone rings. It's our new realtor. She says she is running EARLY... yes early... not late... and she would be there in a few minutes.... all I could do was laugh cause if not, I would have been crying!! I quickly explained the situation to her so she be warned of the foul odor she was about to walk in to! I cleaned it up the best I could, started the washer, and threw a blanket over the empty mattress just for the pictures sake. At least it wasn't a real showing!!

Sister has been in to EVERYTHING lately. She now has a fascination with drawers. I walk around all day shutting drawers. She opens our dresser drawers and pulls out all of daddys clothes then she goes to EVERY drawer in the kitchen and opens them all. As of yesterday, she can now open the top kitchen drawers. I caught her opening the knife drawer yesterday! (Don't know why this pic turned out so small)

You wouldn't even know she was sick just by looking at her. It's funny thinking back to when I was pregnant with her. We were trying to teach Holdyn that her name was 'Hadley' well his speech and vocabulary were that of a 2.5 year old at the time and when he would say her name, he pronounced it as 'Happy'. It  kinda stuck and well all just called her Happy (just like we call Holdyn HoHo cause that is what he would call himself when he was little). It's funny that she really truly is a happy baby. I guess Holdyn just knew that, just like he just KNEW before we even did and he was VERY adament that he was having a baby SISTA.

Now to brother. My wild child! He is an angel and school and NEVER gets in trouble there. I tell his teachers the horror stories of what he does at home or how he acts and they are always like 'oh whatever, he is not!' They just did not believe it since they only see his well behaved side. Well yesterday that got to see the 'other' Holdyn. HA! Bad to say, but I'm glad they now see what I'm talking about!! Teacher Maria but Holdyn in the car and said ' tell mommy the new rules we learned about the sand box today' .... he looked straight down at the floor and wouldn't talk or look at either of us. I knew right away by his actions that he did something bad because he was sooo embarassed. His teacher said he filled a dump truck up with sand, took it out of the sand box and went and dumped the entire thing on the head of one of the two girls in the class. I started getting on to him and teacher Maria said he had been punished and he had to clean up the mess and tell her he was sorry. We got home and he still wouldn't talk about it. I made him sit down and we wrote an apology letter to the little girl and colored a picture and he signed his name and put it in his bookbag. The next morning I caught him taking it out. I asked what he was doing with it and he said " Let's just mail it to her mommy" I told him absolutely not and that he was taking it to her. He then told me "Well I will take it to her tomorrow"... HA! I don't think so buddy! I made him take it that day. I guess he was very very embarassed but maybe that will stop him from doing something like that again!