Sisters

What is a sister?
She is your mirror shining back at you with a world of possibilities. She is your witness who sees you at your worst and best, and loves you anyway. She is your partner in crime, your midnight companion, someone who knows when you are smiling, even in the dark. She is your teacher, your defense attorney, your personal press agent, even your shrink. Some days, she's the reason you wish you were an only child.

I feel honored to be raising sisters and thrilled that I get to watch a new sister relationship take shape and grow each day. Luckily I am half of one of the greatest sister friendships possible (love you Mimi) so I feel I can nurture their closeness through the years. Like Athena and Zoe, Mimi and I are just over a year and a half apart. As children we were best friends who fought bitterly and then made up quickly. Today, my sister is my hero, my friend and my life's story. I love her with all my heart and I expect nothing less for my girls.

Athena and Zoe are already exhibiting familiar feelings that I remember from my own childhood. They are at once deeply connected to each other (Zoe cries bitterly when Athena leaves for school), competitive (always vying for Mommy's attention and lap), mischievous (Athena loves to hide Zoe's favorite bear in the closet), caretaking (Zoe tries to distract Mommy when Athena is getting chastised) and best friends (making each other laugh is the neatest trick) who hold hands in the car.

Watching the girls makes me appreciate and understand this deep connection I have with my own sister. She's been mine since day one and I know no world without Mimi in it. Everyone always talks about "second child syndrome" and it's true Zoe got hand me down clothes, less professional portrait sessions and not as much undivided Mommy and Daddy time as Athena. But Athena, for the first 20 months of her life, didn't have a sister, so I think she's the one who missed out.

Sisters Mimi and Julie circa 1972

Happy Birthday Baby!

Okay, so you're not a baby anymore (as you tell me all the time) you're a sweet, funny little girl. One who laughs out loud and runs and has to do everything by herself. Even though you are three years old today, you will always be my baby...

Happy birthday my darling Athena Michelle.

Best Shot Monday...er Tuesday

The littlest Fairy Princess waving bye-bye to her royal guests.

Fairy Princesses Galore

Today we celebrated Athena's birthday with a Fairy Princess party. Although Athena's actual third birthday isn't until Wednesday, we partied all day long today. She had a fantastic day that started with a huge pancake breakfast with Baba, Daddy, Zoe and Unca Stu at Baba's hotel. This was a neat trick to get everyone out of the house so that Mimi, YiaYia and Mommy could cook and decorate and do last minute preparations for the party.

After breakfast, Athena donned her Fairy Princess finery: a special princess dress, wings, princess hat (which lasted about two minutes) and a magic wand that turned people into animals ("Poof! You're a bunny!").

Around noon the Fairy Princesses and Princes started to arrive. Among the 25 royal guests, who came very festively attired in complete Fairy Princess attire, included...
Princess Julie

Princess Miranda

Prince Devin

Princess Maddie

the littlest fairy, Princess Zoe

and King Baba! Plus many more friends.

We started the party off with some crafts. Each prince and princess had a hat or crown to decorate with gems and letter stickers,
and we decorated wands
and made little pipe cleaner bracelets.
Then we actually managed some party games, including "Pin the Tail on the Unicorn" which was a huge success. Blindfolding and spinning little three year olds is quite entertaining!
The magic toadstool game, which is like musical chairs but with pillows on the floor, ended in some pushing and tears, so that was not such a good idea. Here are princesses who were "out" watching the game unfold.
Following the games, we had homemade pizza, juice boxes and cake.
Zoe was completely doted on all day from her Daddy, fed and carried around like the little princess she was.
After cake, finally, it was time for presents! All the Fairy Princesses descended on the pile of presents in a mad crush. There were more tears as everyone wanted to help open and play with everything right away.
Athena got spoiled with many wonderful gifts, but the best present of all was a new bike from Unca Stu!
After all of that, even Fairy Princesses get tired.
Everyone crashed hard after the last of the royal guests left.
The whole day was really fun, crazy and, um, just a little bit stressful. But what causes ME to make this face...
....causes Athena to make these faces...
So, it's all well worth it.

This was easily the most photos I have ever posted in a thread. Uncle Stu took all the pictures and did a great job. We had at last count over 300 for the day and edited them down to the best 100. So if you want to see even more Fairy Princesses, please click here...

Happy Birthday little Three Year Old girl!

Another snow day

We woke up to a fresh blanket of snow on the ground...another snow day...another day stuck indoors just me and the girls. I know these days are precious but I seriously cannot wait until Spring. With a full day in front of us and all our plans suddenly and completely changed, what to do, what to do. It's just too easy to fall into the t.v. trap, so after a couple of favorite morning shows we...
...made a paper chain of snowflakes,

...and danced in our tutus,

and played an Athena invented game of "airplane" where you buckle yourself in, surround yourself with blankets and pillows, put on your pretend earphones and watch a pretend computer.

And went outside!

It took a full hour to prepare for our 20 minute adventure. First, finding all the hats and gloves and scarves and boots was a challenge. After a search all over the house, I found one of Zoe's gloves had fallen in between the washer and the wall and had to fashion of tool out of a wire hanger to retrieve it.

After bundling both girls in stockings, pants, snow pants, shirts, sweaters and coat...Athena just laid down in the middle of hallway unable to move her arms.

But we finally did get outside.
It was still snowing and Zoe hated it.

But once she discovered she could catch snow on her tongue she was intrigued. One moment later she fell face first in the snow and was immediately distressed again.

Athena loved every second of it.
Even though she was totally covered in snow from multiple snow angels.

I got Zoe's jogging stroller out of the garage and she was content to sit and watch Athena and Mommy play while under her protective canopy.

There was a nearly full bubble bottle in the base of Zoe's stroller and Snow Bubbles were invented. Pretty cool.

The day sped by so quickly with all these activities and we had a blast. I just pray that the airports are clear and my Chris makes it home from his business trip in time to see these girls before bed. Unfortunately, it's still coming down and that is seeming more and more unlikely.

Best Shot Monday

Athena caught on film deeply concentrating
on her "work" in Daddy's office.

Countdown

Just one week until Athena's birthday party. Although we've been talking about her "Fairy Princess" party for months, I somehow thought there was still tons of time to plan it. I completely lost a week which I think is because I can't believe how fast time is zooming by.

My baby is going to be three.

Today we created a birthday chain with one link for each day until her birthday (party). Athena is allowed to cut a link of the chain every night (after brushing her teeth) and count the remaining links. The excitement is building.

One more week and my sweet baby will be a three year old little girl.

Ring Around the Rosie

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

This is just too sweet not to share, though it doesn't capture all of the cuteness. As usual, I was late dragging out the camera and missed Athena and Zoe (in their tutus) dancing together. Athena tried and tried to get Zoe to dance with her again but had to settle for Eeyore.

Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

Thank you to my sweet Christopher who knows I prefer tulips to roses.

"Don't I get any candy?"

Cabin Fever

We literally have not left the house for three days. With my sickness, Zoe's sickness and a little snow and ice storm just for fun, we three have been stuck inside this tiny house, staring out the windows and going a little stir crazy. Chris is on a business trip and it's a challenge keeping the girls busy with activities that take very little energy from me, but we found a few. These are the kind of things we've been doing to keep from climbing the walls:

- Hide and seek. After so many hide and seek sessions where Athena hid right in front of me and I had to go "look" for her, we started playing "Hide the Kitty" where Athena's favorite kitty cat "hides" and she finds it with her flashlight. I like this game especially when Athena hides the kitty herself and then goes around the room "Are you under the bed? Noooo...."

- Playing with tape. Zoe is like a cat, you give her a piece of tape and she tries to shake it off her finger then it gets stuck on her other finger and she'll shake it off again. Stickers are fun too.

- Valentine crafts were trotted out several times and many loved ones will get some pretty unique creations.

- Putting things in boxes. Zoe is immensely entertained by little finger puppets hidden in plastic tupperware and stacked on top of each other. Who knew?

- Dragging Athena around the house on her butterfly blanket got old very quickly so I convinced her to drag stuffed animals around the house instead. You can keep this going for awhile because all the animals have to have a turn.

- Playing a homemade game of construction paper shapes taped to the floor and a Mom laying on the couch saying things like "okay...jump to the blue square...dance to the red triangle...be an elephant on a pink rectangle..."

- Endless rounds of sock basketball.

- Making kitchen concoctions that included a sugar-free chocolate pudding with reduced fat Nilla wafers and strawberries that really was quite yummy.

Thankfully, Mimi stopped in with some necessary refreshments (milk, juice, trashy magazines and cold medicine) and gave me some time to go take a nap while she watched the kiddos for awhile. I can't wait for Spring...

(Update: I'm feeling much better and I've just dug out the car so we are good to go in the morning. I think Zoe and I need to drop Athena off at school and just drive, drive, drive...and perhaps pick up some groceries.)

Pajama Day

Today Zoe and I were sick and Athena was sick by association, so we stayed home and in our pajamas for the majority of the day. Chris left early this morning on a business trip and the thought of getting us all dressed and out of the house to take Athena to school (for 2 1/2 hours) was too exhausting. Plus it was such a busy weekend, I thought a day of doing NO- thing was in order. Still, it's pretty rough entertaining two little ones without any out of the house activities, especially when you're not feeling great, but we made do.

An activity of PlayDough with cut straws kept
their interest for at least 20 minutes.

Zoe probably is sucking on some PlayDough here.

Athena deep in concentration making a PlayDough porcupine.

Doing dishes. Sort of...

And making faces.

Worn out

Uncle Stu (aka "Cornholio") and his Athena are worn out after
a long weekend of lots of activity and very little sleep.

(P.S. Happy Birthday Yia Yia!)