tummy bug.

daddy had it two weeks ago. ellie got it sunday. it waited until midnight on valentine's day to hit me, so unfortunately i spent all night reliving our delicious dinner. i think poppy has it right now, seeing as i am in another room and i can hear her pooping. poor babies. poor us.

we've all had the stomach bug, and i'm trying to scrub it out of our house and also clean up the gigantic mess that happened while i was stuck on the couch for 24 hours.

we'll get back to updates and pictures (i have so many beach and visit pictures!!) and the photo challenge soon. in the meantime, enjoy some pictures i got trying for day 16 (movement):

photo challenge, week one.

a friend of mine, mrs. jolley (who's blog is, unfortunately, going private - but she has a stunning photography blog), set up a photo challenge for february. so far the best part about it has been that i have been taking more pictures in general. most of my favorites have nothing to do with the challenge, really.

presenting one week from the fowler perspective:

day one: self portrait. 

day two: the weather today.

day three: something i ate. 

day four: sunlight.

day five: from high.

day six: from low.

day seven: someone you know.

thank you notes.

thank you, other adults interacting with my daughter,

for teaching her funny phrases that she definitely didn't get from me. for instance: "somebody's hungry" and "oh my goodness! i pooped!" (okay, that last one might have been from me but i'm not sure.)


thank you, magic jack,

for being cheap long distance but an unreliable number for people leaving messages. i just got a two minute long message and the only parts that i could hear were "everything looked fine except..." and "call us back at (crackle crackle) if you have any questions." luckily i figured out it was from the vet.

 
thank you, disney, 

for teaching my daughter all sorts of phrases from the movie tangled. i don't love when she hits me with her frying pan and says "how did you find me? what do you want with my hair? who else knows my location?" i do love when she brushes my hair and sings "flower gleam and glow, let your power shine..."


thank you, pinterest,

for putting all sorts of ideas in my head for things i can't actually do because a) i don't have a proper oven, b) i have no time or place away from little people to do any sort of leisurely crafting and c) i don't have the resources. ugh. but thanks for letting me pretend to have style and let me see some really neat/nerdy stuff.

(p.s. - i know i'm not the only one who sees something and wants to pin it just because it is really yucky or lame looking, but i don't want to seem rude.)

(p.p.s. - i am learning to bake in the countertop oven. i've been successful with cookies and banana bread but no matter how hard you try you just can't fit something like a sheet cake in there.)


thank you, husband,

for teaching my daughter that my name is bradie. it is so weird to hear her call me that. at least it might come in handy if she gets lost?


thank you, npr,

for making me feel like i'm doing something to keep my adult brain from melting. also, you make me feel like i'm more balanced when i listen to you after watching gossip girl.


thank you, God, 

for my poppy's adorable, squishable, kissable cheeks. oh man, they are so great.
and for giving me the best/most challenging job ever.
and for believing that i'm up for the challenge.

two months!

well, more like two and a half but we just had the appointment monday.
the curse of the neglected second child strikes again.

oh, pretty poppy.

i can't believe we've had her for two months. 

i can't believe it has only been two months.

the "pre-smile scrunch" face

she's a big girl, in the 95th percentile for weight at 13 lbs 6 oz and in the 75th percentile for height. she has been wearing 3 month size clothes for over a month now. she's already in size 2 diapers.

she sleeps like a dream, most of the day and sometimes all night - and not just newborn "all night," like, eight hour stretches some nights. her cheeks are incredible. i honestly kiss her at least a hundred times a day just to feel those fat cheeks squish. i also kiss her to make her smile, but it isn't hard to make her smile. talk to her, kiss her, change her diaper, poke her nose, just look at her and she gives a big grin. she's so happy and mellow.

she's pretty good at sucking her thumb and i love it. she'll wiggle and make a couple of squeaks and then she finds it and, after a few sloppy noises she's off to dreamland (sometimes she smiles in her sleep, too). when she is awake, she wiggles like crazy. she loves to be standing up and she sits in the bumbo and watches everyone. she gets lonely when it is quiet or she can't see anybody. she even has a hard time sleeping if it is too quiet. she's not too into tummy time, she either falls asleep or screeches at me. 

she makes a lot of noise, much more than ellie ever did. she coos and talks to me and has conversations. she almost laughs sometimes when she smiles. she makes little baby pterodactyl or raptor noises. she moans and grunts and makes all sorts of fuss. i especially like when she gets upset and goes "uhhhGEE! GEE!" and the other night she even talked in her sleep. it sounded like words - husband and i both looked at each other because we couldn't believe it was her.

she had terrible baby acne. it's finally almost gone.

she loves: 

hugs 

kisses 

milk

snuggles

her rocker

her thumbs

wearing jammies

her big sister

smiling

burps

toots

watching everyone dance

being part of the action

falling asleep in the middle of the action

anybody and everybody

naps

she dislikes:

wet diapers

stuffy noses

shots

 maybe my brown-eyed-girl? and check out the head fuzz. and the cheeeeeeeeeeeks.

i can't wait to see what she does next. she's the dreamiest little baby and i am not ashamed to say that i feel like eating her up all day, every day. i just want to hug her guts out. how could you not?

miss penelope, we love you.

a weekend away.

and somehow that amounts to two weeks away from blogging. whoops.

are you ready for a ton of pictures?

we spent the weekend before last on an island.
my parents came to visit from utah and we headed to jekyll island for a couple of nights.
i know. it was pretty much that awesome.

it was fun, the weather was beautiful and i thoroughly enjoyed hearing my daughter ask, "we go to the ocean?" and being able to respond "yes!" because it was right across the street. i don't think i got any pictures of her actually smiling at the camera because she was totally entranced with the ocean.

then again, she kept saying "we goin to da parking wot!!" over and over, as if the parking lot was some really exciting destination. i guess anything can be fun when you're almost 2.

we walked around on the island, visited driftwood beach, picked up shells, wrote in the sand, put our feet in the ocean and saw plenty of old people. 

i'm not exactly much of a beach person. i mean, i can't really imagine myself living on some tropical beach. this beach, however, i could definitely wake up to this beach every morning.

the beach was made even better by the fact that we were spending time with granma and granpa. aren't they some young looking grandparents? someone thought that ellie was my dad's daughter when husband and i were off on a walk. it's a compliment, i say.

it was even enough fun to make us forget that ellie screamed and refused to sleep the entire first night. ("i dohn wahnnnn to go to sweeeeeeep! no, i dohn wahnnnn to go to sweep anymoh!")

poppy was packed around and basically slept while being hugged the entire time. oh, and in the hotel she slept for more than eight hours straight - all the while ellie was screaming away.

now we're home and when ellie asks if we can go to the ocean, i have to say no.
and that makes me sad.
don't even get me started on what it is like when she asks "where's granma? where's granpa?"

 (sorry ladies, he's taken. and you can't have the baby, either.)

hopefully we'll get back there soon.
and they'll get back here soon.



more pictures from granma and granpa's visit soon, including pictures that prove i was actually there because i'm in them... when i get them. we did some more awesome stuff, including a trip to the place where cabbage patch kids are born. seriously!

thank you notes.

have you ever watched jimmy fallon on late night?
(well, i had a crush on him long before that.)

anyway, he does this thing on fridays where he writes "thank you notes" aloud on the show.
i started finding myself thinking in "thank you notes" while going about my business, so i thought i would share some with you.

(but first, here's your cute picture fix from our walk the other day.
so you can stop after that if you want.)

thank you, rachel mcadams,

for making my husband actually ask to watch girly movies with me.
i know i should be jealous, but i'm just... not. you really are adorable.

thank you, peanut butter and jelly,

for providing some sort of dinner for my child after the first one ends up on the floor.
i know i'll never have to hear "i dohn wike it" when you're around.

thank you, that song that goes "where is thumbkin?",

for making it really awkward to sing the "where is tall man?" part with my toddler,
especially at church. also, can you explain to me why she loves that song?

thank you, coke zero, 

for making husband and me feel less prissy about drinking a diet drink.

(and along that line,)

thank you, kroger, 

for making the cheaper diet soda products that we love. i do enjoy asking my husband if he would like a "cola oh!" or a "diet citrus drop."

thank you, microwave buttered popcorn,

for being so dang good! every single time. but not for making my kitchen smell disgusting.

thank you, every single airplane/train/school bus/police car/etc that goes by, 

for making my daughter go nuts with excitement about the noise she heard until i respond with some sort of, "yes, i did hear a _________! i heard it, too!"

thank you, netflix, 

for basically forcing me to watch every crappy show that was ever on television just because it is streaming and i already paid for it. you will eventually steal years of my life.


feel free to add your own thank you notes. i may just have more at some point.

oh, and while we're on the subject of random thoughts of mine that you really don't care about, i'm tweeting now. it's mostly because husband is on twitter and was complaining that he didn't have anybody to follow... so there you have it.

click here if you tweet or want to see a tweet or want to follow my tweets or whatever tweety tweetley tweet tweet.

hodgepodge.

just some random thoughts and photos from the past little while (with the usual sub-par photography).

an idea of the dress code we have around here. 

nothing is safe from ellie anymore. she uses that chair to reach the counter and do things like put her dinosaurs in the microwave or sort and count the fruits and vegetables. the other day she brought me a tupperware full of cookies to me that she had found on top of the microwave.

dinosaur stir fry. 

poppy last weighed in at 11 lbs 5 oz, putting her in the 95th percentile. that was at her one month appointment. according to our scale at home, she's now well over 12 lbs. she's wearing some 3 month size clothes already. she's a big, happy girl and she's always smiling.

the sweetest little outfit from miss kathleen!

oh, and did i mention that she's a thumbsucker? it's the cutest thing i've ever seen and it sure beats trying to put the pacifier back in her mouth every five minutes. 

my girls are pretty much the best thing in the whole world.