2011: a summary.

january: 

we headed to the temple, 

got snowed in, 

played with grammies and grampas. 

february:

our baby turned one! 

a quick visit to utah to celebrate a wonderful friend...

and unexpected time with family.

march: 

i got bangs

and a positive test. 

(november seemed so far away!)

april:

we had an easter

and mostly just ate cookies for dinner while i struggled with my stomach.

may: 

we saw our boo, 

and got boo-boos.

june:

we found out we were having another girl
and had so many pool parties.

july:

ellie started going to nursery
and we played our guts out.

august:

the world lost a beautiful person.
i turned 25, got big and round, and we visited the tallest peak in georgia.

september:

i got bigger
and made too many cookies.

october:

we trick-or-treated

and fell in love with fall all over again. 

november:

penelope! 

our sweet baby totally outshined thanksgiving 

and anything else that happened.

december: 

we loved on our girls 

and celebrated the season with family and friends. 

it seems that 2011, just like the three years before it, was a complete whirlwind. 

we've had babies and loss and weddings and cross-country moves and it never seems to get dull for long. when things get boring around here an appliance or vehicle inevitably breaks and we get busy improvising (right now we're using our broken dishwasher as a giant drying rack).

it's not perfect but we definitely love each other and we love our life. 

here's to another crazy fun year!

christmas day in pictures.

the weather outside is frightful!

well, actually, it has been beautiful. 

the day before poppy was born, ellie and i celebrated our last day alone together at the athens zoo and playing in the park. we ate sweet potato fries, checked out some turkeys and did some serious off-roading in the stroller trying to make the baby come out (which obviously didn't work). it was one of my favorite days of all time.

in the month between thanksgiving and christmas there were some rainy days, but for the most part we have had unseasonably warm and wonderful weather. we've been taking advantage of it.

 we built a fire pit and made tin foil dinners. we've been going to the park as often as possible.

ellie has finally mastered all the slides, even the big ones. until a couple of weeks ago she would only go up the stairs and look down the slide. she would say "um, i go down the stairs" and come right back down. now she's a pro!

 

whenever we go anywhere these days, ellie asks if we're stopping at the park to play. she loves to play and i love letting her.

coming soon: christmas pictures. 

when we put the house together...

ho ho ho!

merry christmas. 

xoxoxox, 

the fowler family 

one month!

one month of poppy!

she's such a sweet little girl. 

she's getting big and chunky. 

i love her snuggly little body. 

she makes a lot of squeals and squeaks and likes to have little conversations with me, which is so different from ellie at this age. 

she has this funny little sideways crinkly smile which, of course, is beyond adorable. 

among the dozens of other little nicknames, i call her "toot sweet" and i'm sure you can probably figure out why (hey, i'm trying not to be too embarrassing as a mother). 

she puts up with a lot from her sister, but ellie's only fault is loving her too much. poppy gets more ellie hugs and kisses than we do! 

she loves ellie, too. she listens to ellie talk and likes to be able to see her playing. 

this past month has been a blur - not because poppy doesn't sleep, though. she does a pretty decent job for someone who is only a few weeks old. adjusting to a newborn in the crazy month between thanksgiving and christmas has been rough. i feel a little like rip van winkle, like i've been asleep but the world kept on going. 

one of these days i'll be back in the swing of things. 

or at least i'll be pretty good at faking it. 

miss penelope, we are so happy to watch you grow and change.  

we love you.

it's gonna get terrible up in here.

we're hitting the terrible twos early, i'm afraid.

this is why i haven't been posting much. i can't get on the computer without (not-so) helpful little fingers trying to type or some sort of trouble happening behind my back.

why do they call them the terrible twos? for the sake of alliteration? because i think a lot of other words might fit instead: wild, cranky, mischievous, hysterical, demanding, whiny, destructive, and restless... to name a few.

or loud. loud would cover most of it.



despite the fact the my daughter has become a wild thing, she is still a smart and sweet little girl (sometimes).

stories:

the other night, she emptied out a basket and pulled it into the front room. she was sitting in it and yelling something that we couldn't understand. "i riding on the arson!" is what it sounded like and she repeated it over and over, because that's what toddlers do: yell until you figure out what in the blankety-blank they are trying to say. finally, she grabbed the sides of the basket and said "whoa! whoa! whoa!" and shook her body and suddenly it clicked.
she was in a boat.
on the ocean.
"yeah! yeah, mommy!"


here's an admission that i am a a horrible human being and mother, she now recognizes both the walmart and the mcdonalds logos. i had some pictures that were printed at walmart and she saw the logo and immediately said "walmart!" and, of course, she spots every mcdonalds that we happen to pass while we are driving. in my defense, she does always want me to read the "abc's" (aka the words) to her whenever she sees writing.

 
she is always saying funny things. i mean, not just like it's-funny-because-a-little kid-said-it stuff but really funny.
the other day when we were at our appointment weighing poppy (who is now up to 9 lbs 12 oz, that's 6 ounces over the weekend), i said "poppy, are you ready?" which prompted ellie to say "i ready... to go home!"
wah-waaaah.
and when judge ran off in the woods, she stood at the back door yelling, "juuuuuudge! where are youuuuu? come heeeere! we have fooooood! and waaaaaater!"
the way she sounded, i'm not sure if i would come out of the woods either. it sure sounded like a trick to me. (he came back.)



so anyway, when this happened today:

i got upset for a few minutes and thought about giving up on christmas entirely, but instead i whipped out the camera and took pictures of the carnage and then of her in time-out.

and if you're thinking that she took the time to remove all those ornaments from the tree, you're wrong.
she knocked the whole darn thing over.
because she was trying to run from me after i caught her locked in the laundry room, kneading two handfuls of gum.
which she got after hiding in my closet and removing everything from my bag.

this is one reason why we will never have nice things. 

and it all happened in a matter of minutes, while i was trying to get the baby ready so we could go to the park. 

and what is poppy doing while all of this is going on?
sleeping like a little angel.


i'll just have to hang on for those few moments when the stars align and everyone behaves like angels.

those few, few moments.

new life.

love this girl:

 (she is saying "cheeeeeeeese!")

and this girl:

and we're loving our new life. we're still getting used to it, but we love it all the same. 

i can't believe we've had our poppy for two and a half weeks!

i also can't believe it is only two weeks until christmas. so not ready for that.


a little glimpse at our poppy right now:

she has already gained a pound (at least)! we had an appointment thursday and she weighed in at 9 lbs 7 oz - and that's on an empty stomach. still 21 inches. she's a big, healthy girl.

she has the pinkest little cheeks. i want to kiss them all the time.

i think she may have brown eyes like mommy and daddy.

she sleeps so well. i can't really complain about lack of sleep. i think i woke up more often when i was pregnant to use the bathroom. she's wonderful.

she seems to love (or at least tolerate) the chaos all around her.

she makes funny little grumbles and chirps when she doesn't want to be moved and her facial expressions are hilarious.



ellie update coming soon.


for now, just know that there is a lot of this:

 and this:

happening at the fowler castle.

(oh yeah, ellie decided that we live in a "castle" and she is "so happy," despite the face she is making in that first picture.)