Daddy said he took off like 20 silly bands, apparently he missed a yellow one though. LOL.

The best part about Santa was the cookie according to the girls.

Great-Grandpa sitting on a train. We went on tour of this plantation that told the history of some of the agriculture of Kauai. It was actually pretty interesting. The girls said the best part of this was getting out and feeding the piggies (ie the wild boars).

Grandpa Russ, Grandma Pam and Seporah at the Waimea Canyon. This scared the snot out of me. What you can’t see is the little fence directly behind Grandpa Russ and the VERY steep drop off directly behind that. Scared the snot out of me I’ll tell you what.

Daddy and Seporah laughing at a blowhole. Essentially the wave came in through these caves where there was an opening that blasted the water through the top. Making it looked like there was a whale blowing water out. The girls said it was dolphins doing it.

Behind the condo where we were staying. We got to watch the sunset over the water, it was quite beautiful to watch the sun go to sleep.

Felicity playing at the blowhole.

Great Grandma Yeske and Grandma Pam. You can definitely tell they’re mother and daughter.

And one more mother-daughter shot, just a different set.

Just in case you don’t this about me, I can totally rock a fedora or cloche. Seriously. When I’m at a store and put one on, people I’m with do a double take because I actually look good in hats. I have quit wearing them since the ones I have gotten messed up by Thing 1 and Thing 2. So I don’t usually wear them in public anymore. However I saw a huge selection of them at Target and had to try on one that was oh so cute. I really, really wanted it, but decided the black cloche with black feathers and black flower off to the side would just get ruined along with the other ones. While I’m doing this my little love bugs decide they’re going to play dress up too. The above outfit was all Seporah and if you’ll notice the big Hollywood sunglasses are over the top of her regular glasses. It was adorable. Felicity played dress up too, but my cellphone doesn’t capture extremely wiggly/running 3 year olds, only 4 year olds willing to hold still for 10 seconds.

Hiding from the camera

More hiding from the camera

Crawling under the bed to try to get away from the camera

“No Felicity, I don’t want a picture of you, I want a picture of your baby.” “Oh, Ok”

*Background is indeed an extremely messy room.*

The past couple of months though it’s gotten worse, so I decided to just make an appointment and see if they would care that she was only 4 years 10 months. They didn’t question us until we walked into the appointment, but let us see the optometrist anyways. The optometrist very nicely sat down and talked to us for about 15 minutes, but didn’t look into Seporah’s eyes or make her look at a chart. The optometrist told me she couldn’t help us, but that she knew who could. Apparently what I actually needed was a pediatric opthamologist (hello, that would have been nice to know a year ago, they could see I don’t wear glasses and probably don’t know the difference, I’ve actually only been to an optometrist once in my entire life that I know about). So after talking for 15 minutes and not looking into Seporah’s eyes, she very calmly told me she didn’t think Seporah could see out of her left eye. I laughed and totally dismissed her, but thanked her for the number of who I was suppose to call.

We got an appointment with the opthamologist after talking to a few people, including insurance. Get there and I was informed insurance had not completed the necessary paperwork and would we like to reschedule until they could. I thought about it ($275 is a lot of money), but figured since we had been wanting an appointment for quite some time I would just pay it. We get in there and Seporah goes to read the chart, she puts on the special glasses that cover up the left eye and starts reading. She didn’t do so well, but I figured oh well maybe that’s just because she was only using one eye.

And then we covered the right eye, so she was suppose to read with the left eye. “I can’t read it, there’s a black spot on my eyes,” she said while pointing to her right eye. At this point I think I was breaking out in cold sweats and possibly hyperventilating as I’m remembering what the optometrist had said. She could not see out of her left eye. Holy crap. And I had no idea.

So what actually happened is her left eye has probably always worked very, very, very poorly and eventually her brain stopped recognizing it at all. So she’s blind in her left eye without there being any actually physical damage. And to top it off her right eye doesn’t work so well either (BTW, thinking this is why teaching her to read has been such a struggle).

Her right eye is 100/20 and her left eye is worse than 400/20. Her prescription for lenses is right eye +3.25 and left eye +7.5 (and a couple other things that I can’t understand at all). Apparently her lenses are extremely rare and difficult to make (please read very expensive). Steven had to go to 3 different stores before he found one that had a set of lenses (read “a” as in one) that could be made without special ordering. They actually called in their best lens crafter to do them on his day off since none of the other lens crafters felt comfortable doing it.

She seems to like them ok, we just said she was going to be cool like Daddy and we’ve totally hyped them up. I’m worried about how she’s going to do in school, ESPECIALLY in 6 weeks when we have to patch her right eye to try and make the brain recognize the left one more. Found this site where we’re going to get the patches, I thought they were pretty cute, way better than the pirate patches you can get at Wal-mart.

Like ‘em, she picked ‘em out with Daddy

Then we got home and they just HAD to try them on. They told me I was going to be a witch too and I drug out my old witch’s gown. BTW, I totally love this costume, had it FOREVER. It’s cute and stretches to whatever size I am, when I was size 4 (a very, very, very long time ago) or when I was just 11 days away from giving birth. Seporah insisted my hood was NOT a witch’s hat and I needed to get another one from the store. I told her that probably wasn’t going to happen.

They also have matching buckets that they picked out (I swear I did not color coordinate them, they did it themselves, 2 points each for a sense of style). When Daddy came home I told them to tell him what they say on Halloween.
Felicity: “Christmas Tree!!!”
Seporah: “No, you say “Pumpkin Treat!!!”
We just laughed and said either would probably get them what they wanted since they were so gosh darn cute!

My Big Love Munchkin wanted to go trumping in the puddles.

Of course we said, “No it’s raining outside.”

Her response? “But we have an umbrella.”

Today’s Conversation:
Felicity had been crying for 10 minutes.
Mommy: All done with your fit?
Felicity: Yes.
Mommy: All done crying?
Felicity: Yes.
Mommy: Are you going to be good?
Felicity: Yes.
Mommy: Are you going to cry?
Felicity: No.
Mommy: Are you going to scream?
Felicity: No.
Mommy: Are you going to listen?
Felicity: No.
At least she was honest on the last question. The smiley face lasted for about 3 minutes and 12 seconds before the crying started again.

I made these darling pants…

…as well as the girl wearing them.

Magical Shroom…

…the “Magical” part referring to that they are gender neutral for the co-worker who’s not finding out. Craziness. I mean who doesn’t find out in this day and age?

It’s called a Taggie and believe me, they are all the rage in today’s baby consumerism population, google Taggies if you don’t believe me. I made it for a good friend who’s having a baby. They have waited a loonnnggg time for him. I was so thrilled and bought her some stuff, but the stuff (although super cute) really didn’t feel personal at all. So I was like dude, I just bought a sewing machine and I’m gonna start making excuses to use it. I used 3 different types of soft feeling fabrics (don’t ask me what they’re called) and I thought it turned out well. Felicity and Seporah said it was “actually really, really soft” and tried to insist they were the babies that needed it.

Sportin’ the paint as make-up do.

This one came out kinda fuzzy (plus the bright yellow floaty is a total eye deterrent),

but the smile was too cute to ignore.

Hopefully the next so many years don’t sound like yesterday: Seporah was repeatedly bugging Felicity while they were in the car. Felicity was repeatedly screaming. I pull the car over and in my meanest mean mommy voice say, “Don’t touch your sister! Don’t poke your sister! Don’t hit your sister! Don’t kick your sister! Don’t touch her toy! Don’t take away her toy! Don’t pretend to hit your sister! Don’t put your hand in her face! Don’t pinch your sister! Do you understand?!?!?!”
“yes.”
Good, start driving again and not 5 seconds later Felicity starts screaming again. “WHAT?!?! DID YOU HIT YOUR SISTER?”
“no.”
“DID YOU KICK YOUR SISTER?”
“no.”
etc, etc, no to everything.
“THEN WHY IS SHE SCREAMING?!?!”
“I poked her chair.”

The people who say “Be grateful, these are the best years of your life” either have really lousy memories or have much more obedient children than ours. The longer we have the girls, the more amazed I am that my brothers and I made it to adulthood without being killed by our parents. I mean there were FOUR of us, that’s twice as many as we have. Sibling rivalry drives me absolutely bonkers, I’m amazed MY girls aren’t dead yet.

So thank you Dad for not killing any of us and keeping us around for 18+ years. I really appreciate that all of us made it, even though you had 3 boys so there’d be spares.

Thanks for finally taking me to the emergency department when my appendix ruptured. If you hadn’t I would have never lived long enough to fully appreciate a nursery with raisins ground into the carpet that reeks of poopy diapers.

Thanks for teaching me how to drive. If you hadn’t I’d never know the joy of listening to my little monsters fighting with each other in the back seat while I tried to make a left turn.

Thanks for teaching me how to tie my shoes. It’d be difficult to chase after the girls with me tripping over my laces.

Thanks for teaching me how to read. It’s really come in handy for the 28th reading of Olivia Goes to the Park.

Thanks for teaching me to never talk to strangers. As far as my children are concerning, catering to their every whim is far more important than developing a social life anyway.

Thanks for teaching me to sing off key. You get no awards for singing The Itsy Bitsy Spider on key anyways.

Thanks for teaching me about the Strike Zone. Between work, school and children, you’re never gonna find the energy to do it anyways.

Thanks for teaching me the true value of a nap. Now if I could just have the opportunity to appreciate one.

Sorry for all those times when I was little that I annoyed the hell out of you. I’ve got my comeuppance: grandchildren.

Baby Märia, Mommy Pam, Toddler Russell and Daddy Russ