It's A Wonderful Life: March

Whoops, I guess it's been awhile, huh?

Okay, where to begin…..Charlie got his crazy floppy hair cut again. :)

Reese got new sunglasses and thought she became a supermodel.

Charlie kept meowing when I put him down for a nap, and I found this when I went back in his room to try to figure out why he wouldn't sleep.

We enrolled Reese in swimming lessons. It was really awesome for the first 30 seconds (pictured here). After this photo, another kid (accidentally) kicked her in the face, gave her a bloody nose, and ended all the fun. Reese demanded that Matt take her home and never take her back. And, since the YMCA had failed to actually register her for the class she was participating in…we did just that. :)

We had a fun time celebrating St. Patrick's Day

And, speaking of which. I want all of you to take a minute and realize how immensely grateful you are that our family is alive and healthy….because we had a close call here in our house. You see, on St. Patrick's Day, I came home from work, and my whole family had the stomach flu. After putting everyone to bed, I was doing some work on the computer when our carbon monoxide detector started going off. I went over to check it, and the reading was alternating between 0-97. Thinking about how my whole family was upstairs with flu-like symptoms (similar to CO2 poisoning), I started to wonder if something more serious could be going on. I thought maybe I was the only person to escape it because I had been at work until 6:00 that night. So, logically, I called 911.

A few minutes later, a firetruck, and an ambulance arrived, lights blazing, and 2 firemen and 4 paramedics entered our house to evaluate the situation. The first fireman inspected the CO2 detector…and showed me that if I turned the CO2 detector right side up, the 97 actually read Lb….which, in super fancy fireman code, apparently means Low Battery. Yeah. I pretty much wanted to crawl into a hole. I called 911 because we had a low battery in our CO2 detector. The crew couldn't have been any nicer (to my face) than they were, and left after I signed release forms verifying that I didn't need them to evaluate my family's flu symptoms. Ugh. So embarrassing!

Anyways. Stop laughing at me and let's move on. Reese is loving the game Go Fish. It's so much fancier now.

At the end of March, Matt and I spent a night in the city. Our room shockingly had an amazing view of my favorite part of the city (we always get rooms overlooking the hotel roof and alleyway).

We had a fun day of good food and walking around. The next morning, we ran the Shamrock Shuffle 8K downtown. It was a super fun race, and I'm so glad we participated!

Unfortunately, I got a migraine about 10 minutes into the post-race party, which ended our fun. :(

That Monday was Opening Day. The kids were excited to wear their White Sox gear. Or really, their hats. Because they really didn't care about anything else. :)

Ok, the next several photos are going to take us backwards in time, but I'm too lazy to move them back up to the top of the blog. My sister and family came home to visit in March. You can see Callie in the background here. :)

My little stinkers are SOOOO obsessed with the kitchen sink.

Reese has been really enjoying building things from the plans in Charlie's tool bench.

The kids loved playing with Reese's dollhouse.

Charlie loved causing trouble.

But too much time playing with cousins at Grandma and Grandpa's house wore this boy out. :)

We totally aren't potty training, but Charlie is showing some interest, so we are rolling with it when he wants to. He has figured out that he gets to use the iPad when he is on the potty, so he frequently says, "I go potty! iPad!" and runs to the bathroom. :)

Reese loves Charlie's underwear. This day, she went into her room, closed the door, and told me to leave her alone. Naturally, I checked on her about a minute later, which got this response (is she getting ready to flip me off???).

But a few minutes later, she was ready to show off her outfit.

My oral pathology book was out on the counter, and I walked in on Reese checking it out. I was crying from laughing so hard. She was not impressed.

Reese was super tired (and crabby last week), so I strongly encouraged her to take a nap before we went out to dinner with Chuck and Mary. So sweet.

This poor sweet girl had to have her blood drawn again to check her iron. Thankfully, the results were normal, so we shouldn't have to do it again. I felt awful for her having to go through the blood draw, which meant she got ice cream. Which meant Charlie got ice cream. Which made him VERY happy. Until I told him the ice cream was gone. That made him very UNHAPPY.

This boy. THIS BOY. Is making me CRAZY. He is such a little trouble maker. He is constantly into trouble. And he thinks he's hilarious (which would be totally true if he were someone else's kid.)

We spent the whole day outside last Saturday. I tried to get the kids to ride bikes. Reese was totally into it, but Charlie couldn't be bothered with structured activity. He still insisted on putting his helmet on though.

Sidewalk chalk interest lasted approximately 15 seconds before just wanted to color on the house.

Here he is headed straight toward the fiberglass covers for our window wells. Apparently, they strongly resemble trampolines in Charlie's opinion.

Reese had a blast flying a kite for the first time. It actually was in the air most of the time, but it was too far away from her to get a good picture. :)

Charlie was finally entertained with sweeping the garage.

We braved the park in 25 mph winds. The kids didn't mind, they had a blast.

And then they needed a bath. :)

So, remember the swimming lesson story from earlier in the blog? Since Reese wasn't actually registered for swimming lessons at the YMCA (according to the lovely ladies at the front desk, even though I had a receipt), we looked into private lessons at our local gym. Their rates turned out to be pretty reasonable, and Reese is now taking private lessons once a week. Last week was our first lesson, and it was a DISASTER. Reese screamed bloody murder for the first 20-25 minutes (not that I blame her after her last experience with swim lessons). She completely refused to get into the pool. She eventually got in at the end and had a great time.

See how puffy her poor little eyes are from crying?? It was so traumatic. :(

I was so proud of her just for getting in.

Her swim instructor sent us a message the next day to confirm that she was available for another lesson this Thursday. When I told Reese, she looked at me with a very skeptical look and said, "Ummm, actually….I don't think I'm available on Thursday." Ha!

Nonetheless, I dragged her back.

But today, when we returned for our second lesson, she was so excited, had no apprehension, and had so much fun in the pool. I was SO proud of her!!!!!!!