A weekend (and then some) in review

Well our weekend came and went, and seemed to have done so very quickly. My sister came out from CA to visit and that was a blast as usual :) We did some fun stuff, mostly the MD State Fair, but of course that is the one event when my camera was MIA (read as left in the car). Her flight came in a half hour late - so a 12:50am (yes that is am, as in the sun is sleeping) arrival turned into a 1:30am arrival. It's all fine and dandy though because I didn't mind. By the time we finally got back to the house and settled and all that good stuff it was around 3:30am and we didn't hit the sack until 4:30am-ish. Needless to say we were quite the cranky adults when an ecstatic Sophia woke up at 7am (I couldn't even tell you when the last time she was up that early was... it really has been that long). We hid our crankiness well and had a grand day. Since most of the time blends together, I shall talk in pictures - with a few tangents as I recall events. So what do you get when you mix a very sleepy Nouna (Godmother) and 2 pretty cute and equally tired children? Why bandanna peek-a-boo of course! At some point and time Sophia convinced Andrea (previously mentioned as "sister" and "nouna"... talk about a girl with a lot of names) that it would be super fun to go swimming - they may look happy but in fact it was 8am, and although the day got quite warm... it wasn't very warm at 8am. I'm pretty sure this was the point in which Andrea said "What did I sign u for?" A little while later, and long after Andrea was done with the whole swimming thing, Sophia decided she was going to put on her skirt and get in the pool. She said it was "in need of a wash" and proceeded to jump on into the pool. After about 10 minutes of wading around and splashing she climbed out and grabbed a towel. I asked her if she was done for a while and she said "yeah, my skirt is cleaner now, but the water made it to heavy to have fun in". Alrighty then. Sooo... at some point and time (please note I started writing this entry about 2 days ago, so I really have no concept of days anymore) we went to the mall to go on the carousel. I get very very dizzy on carousels, I get almost as dizzy just watching it spin around. I took one for the team to snag this picture. It was the only one that Sophia wasn't looking at me in, and it was the only one that wasn't blurry from the motion (go figure). She absolutely loves carousels. She went on it 3 times in a row before we called it quits and went to feed geese instead. The first 2 times she went in the spinning tea cup but I requested she ride a horse so I could get a picture. By the time she walked off she was so dizzy she couldn't even walk straight, it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. So, this was after my sister left - Tuesday I believe. She has this new found thing for Polly Pockets (she calls them Holly Pockets, I tried telling her it was Polly pocket and she said, "I know it's Polly Pocket, but I like the name Holly better") - Andrea bought her a little set while we were waiting for the carousel to start back up (we had a half hour to burn) so she said decided it would be a great idea to take a wide eyed 3 year old into Limited Too. yeah that was fun. Anyhow, she is completely in love with her Holly Pocket and would play with it all day if given the chance. I figure it's good for the fine motor since the clothes are so darned little, and good imaginative play - so its all good (right?) So this is what Brenna does 85% of the day. She's perfectly content hanging out on her tummy while I fold and put away laundry or while Sophia sings her songs. I'm so blessed to have such an easy going 2nd child, and to have a 3 year old who didn't want me to take her baby sister back to the hospital a week after coming home.Yes, this would be Sophia singing to Brenna because she was upset. She doesn't look that upset, but she had just been poked in the eye by herself and was quiet unhappy about it. Sophia sang her Mary Had a Little Lamb - I love pictures of the 2 of them together, they always make me happy... ok well most of the time. And this... I am so proud of this I had to post a picture of it. Yesterday Sophia told me that she loved her finger puppets, but she needed a castle for them so she could put on a show. She told me that we should go buy a pink and purple castle. I said well I think I can make one... she did not believe me. As I was making it my DH was not so D and said "um, you realize you're using Personal pizza boxes and construction paper right? Do you really think she'll play with it"... well that was before I finished! After he said, wow that actually turned out a lot better than I though (yeah thanks for the confidence A-hole). I must say that it does look better in real life, but you get the point. Soph and I agree that the best part is that the roof with the flag comes off so the princess can be "locked in the tower". Usually she is rescued by the Circus Lion. But yeah, she liked it so much she asked if she could sleep with it... Sorry kiddo, 2 hours of being hunched over and about 50 paper cuts later... I wasn't about to let it be destroyed by a non-play method. Played to death - fine.... slept on to death - not fine. And yeah so today was a really really rough day. I don't know why really, it definitely wasn't Sophia or B, it was totally me. I think I was just really tired and having girl issues. It did become Sophia when we went to go to her very first gymnastics class and she fell asleep in the car and had a total hysterical fit. She totally loved it though and told me she never wanted to leave and that she needed a leotard so she could show her armpits. I watched her for a while through the glass and she had the biggest smile I've seen in a while. So yes that is good. She has so many things that she wants to do - its a good thing DH just got promoted. She also wants to do ballet and learn how to play the violin. Now... no one in our house plays violin, I don't think we've ever seen a person play the violin. I keep asking her why the violin and not the guitar or piano and she says that the violin is the most beautiful sound and it's littler than a guitar and there aren't as many strings and when I asked "well why not the piano" she said "mommy, where would we put a piano? there is no space" - touche. So tomorrow is library day, we are quite excited for some new books - hopefully we'll make it out of the house in time for story time... if not perhaps we'll go to the park and then the library. But clearly we're not so good at the whole "planning thing".