Happy halloweenie

This year Halloween was rather de ja vu as both girls decided to wear costumes that they have used before. Since we have a huge trunk of dress up clothes I was quite happy with the idea. Of course I expected nothing less from Rosie as she is absolutely opposed to any kind of change so why on earth would she want to wear something different.

Lily put together a witches costume from 3 different costumes and was very happy with her end result. Initially she was going to be an angel but somewhere along the line that idea flew out the window.

They both went to school dressed in costume and at the very last second Rosie got nervous because she was scared her teacher would look to scary. I talked her out of her tree quickly and off she trotted. They have strict guidelines for school so I knew she wouldn't get scared.

Super Girl

Not so wicked witch

spider and warts

This evening Auntie Sally and Uncle Andy took them to Build A Bear so we decided to trick or treat there at the mall and stop at some friends houses on the way home. By the time we got back here it was late so we did a few minutes outside before they were obviously way too tired and ghastly so I whisked them away to bed.

Rosie with Sandy ***

Lily with Big Bear

***The reason Rosie called her bear Sandy has nothing to do with the storm and I tried to talk her out of it but then she told me why she had chosen it I melted, it is a mix of Sally and Andy.

A taste of home

Late yesterday afternoon with the skill of a scam artist. I slipped out of the house and whizzed of to the airport to pick up my sister and brother in law whilst all the time my youngest daughter thought I was heading off to work. She headed off to swimming with her sister and father. We managed to slip back into the house minutes before they arrived home and the wily auntie and uncle hid strategically in the house and awaited her arrival. Lily was in the know  and about to bounce out of her skin.

Rosie flew into the house so happy to see that I was home early from work and nearly jumped 2 feet high when Auntie Sally jumped out and asked, Don't you love me too? It was a classic moment and one I will never forget. I couldn't however get it on film as it would have blown the moment. I love my sister as she is one of a kind and her hubby is just brilliant.

Sally and Andy were meant to be arriving on Saturday and were flying on passes out of Heathrow but due to Hurricane Sandy they kept getting bumped and by Sunday night they knew they were not coming. Andy stepped up and bought tickets on the spot, last minute with another airline for top dollar just to get my sister here to see us. What a stand up guy he is!

The excitement level was bar none. After about 2 minutes Rosie looked at Sally with a very serious face and said, did you bring my Jelly?  Oh yes she did little girl oh yes she did.

This is gold to Rosie and would be called jello over here. I think this should last a while. Thank you crazy Auntie Sally.

I do not let my girls eat American Jello. It is filled with nasty ingredients and it makes them act nuts. I have an absolute hatred of food colouring and Jello is loaded with the stuff so in this house it is outlawed plus it is just plain nasty.

Love this.

Of course it isn't just Rosie that hits pay dirt when family comes to stay, oh no. I don't do too badly either. My sister stopped into see my Father before she left and daddy remembered that his little girl loves chocolate and sent her some of her favourite biscuits. Just one or two packets.

Heaven

All my favourites. I might share with the girls, might.

When Lily was little we started to collect books by the English author Julia Donaldson and now we still collect them for Rosie so I asked Sally if she would look for one and she found a perfect one for this time of year and found something suitable for Lily too.

our favourite author

Anything with a pair of knickers on the cover is bound to be a hit with a 10 yr old.

There were lots of other goodies too. My favourite is a Bunnykins moneybox. The best part of course is having my sis to my self for 10 days. It was meant to be 2 weeks but Sandy put the kabosh on that. Oh the fun we will have.

Whatever will they think

Halloweenie is not a reason to decorate your house in England, in fact the only reason one might decorate ones house in England is for Christmas. We do not live in England anymore and therefore we do decorate our house for Halloween (and any other occasion that we can find).

The girls do most of the decorating, it isn't necessarily done the way I would like it done but it is done how they like it done so I am learning to deal with it.

Hopefully My sis' is arriving today and she will walk into house of crazy Halloween decor, I bet she will think we have gone stark raving mad.

this little table is now also covered in gourds

every single mirror downstairs looks like this.

Lily's pumpkin display

Ghosts ascending the stairs.

Our downstairs bathroom has been turned into a house of horrors and there are lots of other little spookies all over the place.

Caution, I'm whining

This freaking Hurricane is screwing everything up. Well except our weather, that I have to say is rather nice.

My sister and her hubby were supposed to arrive yesterday from the UK, they got bumped from many o flight. My sister and her hubby were meant to arrive today from the UK the got bumped from many o flight. The final kick in the teeth came when all flights to New York City were cancelled until further notice and all NY passengers were moved onto flights to Miami and or Orlando.

My sister decided she was giving up, they had no idea where their luggage was but once it was located they were flying off to sunny parts unknown with their luggage full of Jelly for Rosie and chocolate for me and a couple of books for Lily. Sigh.

Late this afternoon my niece sent me a text that said, booked on Virgin flight meet them at the airport at 18. 40. I sent back one word: TODAY?

I then realised it couldn't be today as that would make their flight all of 3 hours.

Thankfully I hadn't told Rosie anything about them coming. Lily had to find out when a swim meet interfered with the visit and she needed to make a tough call. She was devastated. My girl is dealing with some pretty heavy news at the moment and this blow on top of it was pretty rough.

I can't wait to see their faces tomorrow night when they get home from swimming and I am sitting here with their Auntie and Uncle!

Freaking storm. But you can't keep a M*&^y down! We are like Timex watches we take a licking and keep on ticking

Say no to Spam

I can honestly say that I cannot think of a meat product that is more disgusting than Spam. Is it actually made of meat, I am not even sure? Anyway this isn't the kind of spam that I am referring to in my, Say no to Spam, campaign. Lately my little blog has been besieged by spammers and every single day I get about 10 spam comments left on it and it's driving me insane. It appears that the world wants to use me to hock their wares. Be off with you, I say. Sod off and leave me alone.

Sadly I have no choice but to instate the really annoying and horrid word verification device in the comment section. This means that the computers that generate the spam won't be able to leave any comments since they aren't smart enough to read the word verification.

I am hoping that in a couple of weeks I can take it off and they will stay gone. Banished to someone else's blogs, hopefully not yours of course. So, for the few of you that comment, please don't feel any pressure to do so whilst that annoying little thing is in place.

I don't comment on a lot of blogs that have it as it drives me up a wall. It usually takes me 3 attempts to get it right.

I really hate to use this thing but I detest the spammers even more. Some of the comments aren't even in English. Me so sorry.

Life lessons

I didn't realise until today just how sheltered our lives are. We don't mingle with people other than our kind of people. Today, yet again, I stepped outside of my comfort zone for the sake of my kiddies, so that they could have a little adventure and we rode public transportation.

Here in Miami there isn't much public transportation and not many people use it. It's not as if people choose it as a way of commuting, well obviously some do but not like in most major cities. Here everyone drives.

Today the girlies and I were heading downtown to meet with a jeweller. I need to have some old, Edwardian earrings made into something that I will actually wear and there is only one person in the world that I trust to do the job. Instead of driving, I decided to let the kids take the train. I packed enough Purell to ward off Berry Berry, pnuemonia, the Bubonic Plague and the Clap and we headed out.

We were barely even rolling when the girls encountered life lesson number one: grown men fight.  Oh yes they do and right there on a train and they say all kids of words about their Mothers. In fact Rosie has a whole new vocabulary that I am hoping she won't be sharing with her Kindergarten class on Monday. They say other things to but not as much as they say that thing about their Mothers. Luckily the train driver lady got out of her seat and got all up in their business and threw 2 of them into a different compartment. I thought she was very brave. The girls and I just sat still.

A little later on I was surprised when a man got on with his dog. Since when do dogs ride on trains? It wasn't a service dog, just a pet dog. It made me laugh and the girls thought it was crazy. He didn't stay long.

Things calmed down for a good 3 stops and then they went really batty when the transgender wo/man got on. S/he was enormous and everso African American and covered in tattoos and not very girly or pretty and s/he sounded just like a boy but was wearing a very pretty dress. Lily nearly had to manually reinsert her eyeballs on this one. I purposely failed to point this out to Rosie.

Rosie didn't miss the large man who insisted on standing and leaning against the pole because the pole kept disappearing up his behind,, Yes, yes, I know it's gross but try having a 5 yr old and a 10 yr old with you when this is going down. It's impossible for them not to laugh and laugh loudly. Lily then decided she would not hold on to anything for rear of where it had been! Ditto her sister.

It wasn't long before a man and his bike got on the train. Again, we thought it was odd and the girls giggled. They don't seem to accommodate bikes so the man had to hold it the whole time.

When groups of people get on trains together they appear to be oblivious to all the other people around them and they talk really loud and about a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g in really loud voices. My girls now understand about fencing stolen goods. Yes, so if you need advice, ask Lily she can help with that. Also if you bank won't give you a loan for a car, well I know just what to do.

They also learnt that if a stranger on a train gives you candy your Mum will smile at him, in a kindly fashion, and then whip that candy right out of your hand, nearly breaking all of your fingers and she will toss it in the nearest rubbish bin, without the stranger even noticing. That's just how she rolls. She will then drill you on stranger danger for the next 100 hours.

It was so much fun. Riding the train is hilarious. People watching is the best. I could have done without the fight though. I came home and took a hot shower cos it was really grody.

Downtown wasn't without it's fun either but compared to the train, a piece of cake. I'll share the photos of my jewellry when it's done.

Just starting out and all is well

eewwww, I am not touching ANYTHING

Me either, (ignore the pole)

Life is a masquerade

Halloween is just around the corner and the girls have had their costumes picked out for over a month but tonight they decided they needed to be absolutely sure they had made the right choices.

They scurried off into the toy room and buried themselves in the dress up box. Every single one of the 99 million costumes that we have came flying out but for some reason the things that held them captive tonight were the masks.

I was busy cleaning out closets so I wasn't really paying to much attention to them but I walked past when they were playing with this one.

A few minutes later Rosie wanted me to take her photo looking like this.

Once the box was completely empty and the floor was covered in feathers and sequins they both decided they were 100% happy with their original choices. Oh Goody. I thought it would be a great time to see if we could part with a few of them......silly me.

Card sharks

Since Lily was just a tiny dot she has loved playing Snap. Now her and Rosie play it all the time and they get quite heated. Sometimes the 3 of us play together or should I say against each other. This particular deck was a gift from her cousins Katie and Sophie when she about 4 and is a favourite even though it is a Christmas theme.

Dealing

Dealing faster and faster

SNAP...when they scream SNAP...it's deafening

Really, I have no idea what is with the glasses but she wore them for Snap.

I loved this game when I was a kid and love that the girls enjoy it too.

Itchy Lily

One day last week while Lily was feeling particularly horrid I stopped at my friend Jakies house on the way to taking Lilipop to the Pediatrician. Lily has been there countless times but this time something was different for her. Jakie's cat Honey, in a ridiculously short amount of time, made Lily break out in hives. (My family and Jakie's pets = not good LOL)

We de-haired her clothes, wiped down her skin and headed off to her ped appointment. What is the first thing the nurse notices? The hives. In all fairness they were kind of hard to miss they were even on her face. After seeing Barbara about Lily being sick we discussed Lily's reaction and I agreed it was time to get her allergy tested.

Yesterday was the day. Since the kid hasn't been through enough lately we just decided to throw this at her too. Sometimes you just get really lucky when you pick a doctor at random and yesterday was one of those days. This doctor was fabulous and had a great sense of humour. One thing that he had in common with Lily's pediatrician was a common belief that it was not the cat that made Lily break out in hives but more likely something that she ate that morning. I stood firm in my belief that it was Honey.

In came the nurse with her tray of 32 nasty little scratchers to poke Lily with and we were off. She marked up Lil's arm and the first scratch was histamine and within seconds she responded.
She then continued down all 4 columns until she was done. The far right as you look at the photos are food and cat and dogs. We were watching these really closely.

Immediate reaction to histamine. Everyone has that.

As each minute passed she started to react to 4 things and get itchier and itchier but she could not scratch so behind closed doors she turned into a ninja and had herself and her mother in fits of giggles.

Nothing happening here

Something going on here but we don't know what it is.

Aha, see the bump on her arm that is tucked under that's CAT! 

After her 20 minutes was up the doctor came back in (he back in before that to just to check on her) and he looked at her rolled his eyes and sighed. She is allergic to cats and quite highly allergic to cats! He doesn't get it. She is also allergic to grass but only the kinds of grass that we have down here in Florida, the kinds that pollinate 10 months out of the year. He doesn't get it because most kids with these types of allergies display different symptoms: runny noses, bronchial infections, itchy eyes, asthma, what you consider typical allergy suffering symptoms but not her she goes straight to hives and displays nothing else. Plus, this is sudden onset!

I told him, this is typical of my kid, she doesn't like to be ordinary. He laughed. She made him laugh a lot. He said if and when she breaks out in hives, cos she will because, lets face it, you can't avoid grass it's around, she should just take anti histamines. It isn't a "bad" allergy. We know this.

Her ant allergy, now this is a bad one and is life threatening. I don't know if he was trying to scare me or not. If he was it didn't work but he says it can kill her. Yes, I know this. He wants the shot therapy for her. All doctors do. We researched it, thoroughly and I don't. Her reaction to ant venom is very high it measures a 5 on a 1-5 scale. She is aware of this and is careful. We don't go anywhere without her epi-pen and she has only had a problem once. ONCE. She might never have an encounter again.

So weird kid of mine has developed more allergies. The cat one blew me away cos this summer when we went to GA jacob took them to see his aunt who is cat lady and has 20 cats and she didn't even scratch let alone break out in hives.
What gives kiddo?

Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday I woke up and just felt like I had been hit by a bus.I can't say that anything was wrong, I just felt yucky. I knew I was going to have to suck it up as we were meeting our local FCC group at the Pumpkin Patch. I think I was more excited about it than the girls were. Lori had found a farmers market that had a pumpkin patch, a corn maze, hay rides, caramel apples and a plethora of other fall treats. I have never been to a corn maze but have seen them on T.V. and could not wait to take the girls, I also knew they would love the hay ride. So suck it up I did and off we headed north, for an hour.

First thing yesterday morning the temperatures were in the high 70's and it was beautiful but by lunchtime they were back into the mid to high 80's and it was HOT. I let the GPS guide me to the farmers market and once we turned off of the main highway we were in the  middle of nowhere. All of a sudden I see cars everywhere and flashing blue and red lights. Apparently the world and his brother had decided to go to the farmers market and the cops were directing the cars in an out. The place was mobbed. We parked the car in the street and walked in and as luck would have it we found our group in the crowd of people instantly. The girls were very excited to see their friends. Due to the mob scene we decided we needed to move the troops immediately and start covering some ground.

First up, the hayride. I spent a whole lot of time explaining a hay ride to Rosie. I told her how she would be sitting in a trailer on a big pile of hay and that we would be pulled by a tractor, etc etc. WRONG! No hay to be seen anywhere at all. After a few minutes of riding around a soon to be U pick 'em, field sitting on a seat in a trailer, Rosie lent over to me and whispered, "is it okay if I'm not having any fun?" I couldn't help but laugh. She said it was a little bit of fun but she thought she would be jostling around in a trailer full of hay. Me too little Pickle, me too.

Little pumpkins ready to head out on the hayride

Lily and E_Man. He is such a sweet guy.

While the kiddies waited for the trailer to pull up they were able to play in the bouncy castles and with other stuff.

Rosie pumping water to race her duck

getting a little help from her friend

Lily found the ducks a bit dull but the rock wall awesome

A troubling trio.

Since the hayride was a bit of a bust I couldn't wait for the corn maze. Marc, Lori and I all walked in together. Lori and I kind of stopped and stared. Aren't mazes tall and blind? Not in Fl apparently. It had been virtually trampeled. Oh well, never mind. THe kids took off and made fun of it and Marc cracked really bad jokes that made Lily giggle and we walked around and posed for photos and left. Strike 2. Now for sure we are really laughing only I am starting to feel really ill so it is getting harder and harder for fake it. Lily is catching on to the fact that I feel ill so I am trying really hard to be cheerful. Neexxxxt, the pumpkin patch. Nothing could be wrong with the pumpkin patch right? I mean it's just a pumpkin patch. Well unless they have sold out or nearly sold out. Oh what the heck.

Cheese!

And that was all that was left of the group by the time we got to the pumpkin patch. 

WE headed into the farmers market for a minute and bought a cold drink, then I bought the girls a caramel apple before heading back to the car where I blasted the A/C and hoped I would survive the hour+ drive home. I still feel like yuck today. I think I am fighting off whatever it was that Lily had. I was tempted to gulp down some of her anti nausea meds but I didn't. I have no energy at all and I don't like it one bit. I have to have energy. it's my trademark and it pisses everyone off! If you are down in this neck of the woods and a week before Halloweenie you decide to head to Bedners to go on a hayride and to the corn maze, DON"T. Stick to the tiny church run pumpkin patches, you won't be disappointed.

First meet

Rosie had her first swim meet. It wasn't a "real" meet just a friendly one. The coaches do these to get the kids used to what happens at a meet but more importantly so that they can see what they need to work on with them. So many things can get you disqualified at meet that the coaches start working on the kids now so that it doesn't happen......hopefully. Between you and me, I don't think Rosie stands a cat in hells chance. Seriously, she'll never remember all the rules, I can't even remember all the rules. Touch with one hand for this stroke, 2 hands for this stroke, don't turn over on backstroke until blah blah blah, make sure that, blah blah blah. Who remembers all of this? The coaches do and they drill it into the swimmers in a way that is fun.

After her initial Rosie panic attack she loved it the meet which is good because she has another next week. The under 6's only swam 2 strokes and they got their first official times.
Freestyle 34.08
Backstroke 41.08 (I think she may have stopped and asked for directions ) Kidding people, kidding.
I am not the braggy type but in her defense I have to say the child does really well considering she is half the size of 90% of her team mates and she holds her own.

Rosie in the left lane

freestyle

Rose in the land of the GIANTS. 

backstroke

participation ribbon. Hmmm, her little cheeks look chipmunkish here? 

See the flags above the pool? I thought they were just there to look pretty and thought that it was nice that they got replaced the other day for new ones. Not so. They are back stroke flags. Don't ask me what that means cos I haven't got a clue, I'll ask one of my kids but it has something to do with not banging your head. On an unrelated note: a small tinge of pink was spotted in Lily's cheeks late this afternoon so I am hopeful that she is turning the corner. She says that the pains in her stomach now measure a 1 on a scale of 1-10. Another 12-14 hours of sleep should hopefully push her into the all better zone. Thank you all for your well wishes.

Eating my words

Not 2 hours after Lily went to bed last night she woke up writhing in pain. I put a call into her pediatrician and was told to take her to the ER not the clinic, immediately. The child that is terrified of needles looked like this within minutes of arriving there.

When you hurt so much you really don't care, thank goodness. Thankfully they gave her something for pain early on and something to stop the vomiting so she was able to lay still for the remainder of the night.
Test after test after test. I have seen most of her insides on ultrasounds and they look normal.

Verdict. One bad arse virus.

Heavy meds to keep her pain free and nausea free.

No school or any activities. Duh!

2 kids and one adult with no sleep = Mama in warrior mode.

Feel better sweet girl.

Time for a riddle

What's got black eyes, barks like a seal, a high fever, a sore throat, and a serious pain in her stomach?
Give up?
Lily. Since Saturday!

She just can't catch a break. One set of symptoms subsides and another moves right on in. I can't believe I am actually going to cast these words out into the universe: thankfully Rosie has been spared so far.

Each night I put her to bed and think, wow she is so much better tonight this must be the end of it and tonight is no different. Earlier I nearly took her to the emergency clinic because the pains in her stomach were so bad I really thought it might be appendicitis especially when she started feeling sick.

Feel better little Lilipop we have a big weekend planned.

I nearly giggled

When I picked Rosie up from school today she couldn't wait to tell me about something in her backpack. She started to unzip as we were walking to the car so I asked her to wait as it seemed like a really bad idea. It turned out that she had bought a huge amount of her work home for me to see and sign and couldn't wait to see it herself as she was interested to see her grades.

We sat together at the desk going through the papers page by page and she was so happy to point to the E's and S's and then we got to a page and the grade was a U and she went quiet. The next thing I know she is crying. She was so upset that she got a bad grade. I told her that it didn't matter and that out of 60+ papers she got one lousy grade but she was crushed. It was so hard not to laugh. I'm sure I couldn't have cared less about my grades when I was 5, actually I don't think we got graded at 5.

After we finished looking I read her the teachers note which only compounded her short comings, in her eyes. As far as I am concerned she is doing OK. She really does need to slow down and work a whole lot tidier and after reading this from her teacher I think she will. She thinks the sun rises and sets on her teacher so if the note said, Rose needs to come to school with her knickers on her head, I believe she actually might.

Her homework tonight was done with near perfection! Her and Lily are truly as different as chalk and cheese.

I guess it's a fish. 

more work

A much needed suggestion. I bet she does this from now on. She hates to disappoint anyone.

Big orange things

We have a pumpkin patch just down the road from the house. It's the only pumpkin patch I know of around here. It's the only sign that it is supposedly Autumn and I absolutely love it. Since Lily was 2 we have visited it every single year. I know it is rather early but I decided today was the day. Lily has a really awful cold so she isn't swimming this week and I decided that I wasn't even going to take Rosie so that Lily didn't have to sit at the pool outside in the heat for an hour waiting for her.

After dinner the temperatures appeared a tiny bit cooler so I ventured to the Great Pumpkin Patch with the girls. It's a good thing we did because I don't think it will be there in another week. There weren't many pumpkins left and the ones that were there were covered in ants and and lots of them were rotten and smelly but it still looked so lovely and made us feel like we lived somewhere that has seasons so we didn't mind at all. (until Lily moved one and maggots crawled out).

Pumpkin patch photos are my absolute favourite photos I just love them. I think it is because they are just so vibrant and different from what we usually see here.


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Rosie's innocent little face is fooling no one.

this snarly one is more like it.

You have to love the boots and shorts from my fahionista.

I wanted to buy all of these but they came with an ant farm

The equivalent of the Black Sheep of the pumpkin family.

The girls bought a few baby pumpkins but we had to avoid the big ones that begged to be carved because of the red ants. We need Richie Rich to come back stat to help us again. He was the best pumpkin carver.