Our friend Katie from Florida

My old college RA Renee sent us Katie to keep for 2 weeks. Katie is a teddy bear that is a travel buddy for Roni Alima, a second grader in southern Florida. They are learning geography from their travel buddies. We take her with us and document her time with us before we send her off to a new family after two weeks time. She'll be going to Iowa next to visit with the Missaoui family before going to visit the Kelson's in New York. So here is what Katie has done with us:

On Wednesday Katie went to gymnastics and dance class with Taylor.

On Saturday we went to the Liberty winter BBQ where she tried some traditional Kansas City BBQ and ice cream for dessert.

Katie when to church with us (Sunday) at Desperation Church.

On Monday she went to story time with Taylor.

At story time Katie participated in craft time.

On Tuesday Katie went to Red Robin and enoyed a burger and a water with the family.

Today, Katie went with Jay to Overland Park and Jay took Katie to Arrowhead stadium.

MATCHBOX 20!!!!

Jay got us some tickets on the floor at the Sprint Center to see Matchbox 20. We went to that concert tonight while Jay's cousin Christine watched the kiddos for us. We got some serious rock star parking right outside of the doors at the Sprint center and didn't have to wait long to get into the arena. We got ourselves a $5 soda and sat down in our seats to enjoy some adult conversation before the concert started. Unfortunately we were surrounded by some serious winos on both sides of us that ended up squeezing us tighter together than we've been in public in a long time!

The opening act was MuteMouth and they were actually pretty entertaining. They have one famous song that neither Jay nor I can remember the name of. They were doing back flips over their keyboards, standing on the drums, and at one point in time every member of the band was standing around the drums playing them.

The next opening act was Alanis Morisette (sp?). I thought that she would be pretty good since she has like 4 or 5 really good songs...unfortunately she played a lot of junk that no one knew. Our running joke of the evening was that at one point in time I told Jay "I just want to go push her off of the stage and say 'Isn't it Ironic?' as I see her falling off." I just really wanted to get to the main event.

When Matchbox 20 was getting ready to come out they had this big barred screen that they had a little space man roaming around to a Johnny Cash song while a countdown was going on above the screen. Then they came out and completely rocked it out. I think Jay enjoyed the concert just as much if not more than I did. Truthfully I think that Rob Thomas is one of Jay's man crushes. I cannot blame him. They put on an AWESOME show and it was worth every single penny!







They played one encore set and they played a three song set during that set. I could've stayed there all night listening to them play. What was cool was once they were done playing Rob Thomas jumped down off of the stage and was shaking hands with the fans. He's just a really cool guy. He didn't really talk much because he said he wanted to cram as many songs into the couple of hours that we had as possible. AWESOME SHOW!!! I hope y'all enjoy the photos!

Bella and the baby within...

Today Bella was in her little walker making her rounds when she looked down and got suddenly very interested in the tray. Jay was reading the story about Amanda Pig to Taylor so I didn't get up immediately to investigate. When I did get up I discovered that Bella was seeing her reflection in the tray and was giving her reflection multiple kisses. She's so funny!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAY!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR JAY
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

We are celebrating Jay's birthday in the middle of a snow storm in what I deam the "Den of Disease". Taylor is still recovering from tonsilitis, Bella is working on getting rid of conjunctivitis, and I have mastitis. We are the "itis" family. Jay had to come home early from work today to give me my car back and watch the kids while I went to the doctor. We now have a roaring fire and Jay is cooking his own birthday dinner. We've officially rescheduled his birthday for next week so I can treat him as a birthday boy should be treated. He has gotten some good quality time with his children today.

Eachy goes to the Hospital

First of all, "Eachy" is the nickname I have given Bella because I'm alway telling her that she's so cute that I want to "eat ya" and it sounds like "eacha" when it comes out. Now...onto the story!

Bella had an eye infection and the pediatrician said that they couldn't see her that day or probably for the next couple of days but that she did need treated. They told me to take her to the ER. I thought that it was dumb that they wouldn't see her but what could I do? We trudged out to the ER.

Bella was SUCH A GOOD GIRL during the obnoxiously long wait to be called back into a room. Once we got into a room they had a bed for her to lay in and she thought that was great. She laid down in her little bed and kicked and played. She kept the lady across the hall amused which was good because I think she was in there with a broken leg. Eachy ended up getting bored with laying down and playing so I sat her up and gave her my scarf that Renu gave me and she played with the fringe.

When the doctor came in she said that Bella has pink eye and it will probably spread to the other eye as well. She prescribed her some eye drops and said that no one wanted her to discharge Bella because they were all having so much fun coming by and playing with her. She's a cutey! Even when she looks like Rocky Balboa.

Well aren't we the bad luck buddies...

Story #1 We invite Tori, Kennedy, and Lola (Taylor's friends from school) on a playdate at Taylor's gymnastics gym. They have a wonderful time and about 20 minutes before open gym is over Tori takes a tumble on the trampoline and starts to cry and is clutching her knee. Now Tori is about as tough as they come so for her to cry it must be REALLY bad. When she calmed down and tried to stand on it she couldn't put any weight on it and she started to tremble. Her mom called the doc and the doc said that he thought that she'd hyperextended her knee and to call him if it didn't get any better. That was Friday, it is now Monday and poor little Tori still can't walk on her leg and they are going to get it x-rayed. YIKES! Tori and her mom may never call us again!

Story #2 Yesterday (Sunday) we notice at lunch that Taylor is out of sorts. She doesn't want to eat her pancakes and all she wants to do is take a nap. We come home to take a nap (she does this very well) and when she wakes up she has a fever of 102. I giver her some ibuprofen and she sort of meanders through the evening. When we put her to bed all is well until 4AM this morning. She is hysterical. I go in and she says that the wind is scaring her. When I touch her she is burning up with a fever. So I crawl into bed with her to snuggle her and comfort her until her fever starts to come down. At 5AM motor mouth still hasn't stopped talking so I take her into our bedroom thinking maybe she's still not warm enough. Nope...motor mouth then keeps Daddy awake too. Bella wakes up at 6AM wanting to nurse...she nurses and motor mouth insists on waking Bella up too. We had an early start to this morning. Taylor had a checkup with the ENT this morning and she has tonsilitis. Tonsils will be coming out this summer.

Story #3 Have I told you yet that I washed & dried Jay's cell phone?

Story #4 My furnace is dying a slow and painful death.

Yep...I'm done.

The Tooth and Nothing but the Tooth

FINALLY!!! Bella got her first tooth today on Savannah's 14th birthday! Happy Birthday Savannah! I was playing with her on the couch when I noticed that her gums looked a little funny and after I inspected I saw the little white nubbin' poking through her gums. It is her upper right front tooth that came through. Yay Bella!

Valentine's from Taylor & Bella

We sat in the living room at our coffee table and made valentine's for Taylor to take to all of her friends at school, gymnastics, and kindermusik. My job was to cut and glue the fabric to the baby jar lid and cut and glue the ribbon around the lid and tie a pretty bow. Taylor's job was to help her daddy fill the jars with m&ms. We had to watch her very very closely though because she was doing "one for you, one for me" and I kept hearing Daddy tell her "no more Taylor, no more".

Additionally we sat down and made a valentine box for her to keep the valentines she received. The fabric I'd picked out was a remnant and it had little monkeys on it holding hearts. So we sat in the floor and covered the box with the fabric and on the inside we put the same fabric that we put on the jars that she gave her friends. She called her valentine box her "monkey box" because of all of the little monkeys that were on it. I put some glitter around the hearts after she went to bed so it was sparkly when she got up the next morning. She LOVES her monkey box.

She gave her friends Shrek valentines, but she gave family valentines that she and Bella made together. We put Taylor's footprint (in pink) with Bella's (in purple)right next to it with their names in their respective footprint. On the back there is a little valentine rhyme that we printed out on pink paper and cut it out with wavy scissors that we glued onto the card and imbellished it with stickers. The rhyme says:

This isn't just a valentine
As you can plainly see
It is of course my footprint
Which is a part of me
It's bigger than the last one
Smaller than the next will be
Given to you with lots of love
From sweet and precious me

Christine, Marian, and Tatum came over the play with the kids on Valentine's day and gave Jay and I the opportunity to go grab a piece of cake from Cupini's and a cup of coffee (or in my case hot chocolate) from By the Book and talk. I think we all had a WONDERFUL valentine's day!

Happy Valentine's Day "Da Da"

We had a wonderful Valentine's Day in the O'Brien household. I helped Taylor make Valentine's for her friends (decorated baby food jars with M&Ms in them) with her Shrek Valentines. We also make a little decorated box for her friends to put the Valentines to her in (she calls it her monkey box because the fabric has little monkeys holding hearts on it). We gather up all of this stuff and as we are heading out the door Bella belts out "DA DA".

I looked at her and started laughing and she thought that was great fun. That was the first time she'd ever said "da da" before. So Taylor went off to school and Bella and I hit the grocery store. We bought some cupcakes to take to Daddy's office so we could tell him of the glorious event and when we get there he was GONE! He had a meeting with a printer. We would just have to wait until he got home to tell him. Once at home I stripped Bella off and she made her valentine for her Daddy. We told him through the Valentine, but he was not as excited as I thought he'd be. She said it like 3 more times while he was at home but he was either not paying attention or was in another room. He would finally hear the glorious words on Saturday Feb. 16th while we were working the nursery at Desperation Church.

Bella's Funny

LOOK AT HOW BIG I CAN MAKE MY NOSTRILS!!!

Taylor and Bella at Story Time

Taylor and Bella go to story time at the Library every Monday morning. They begin by singing a hello song and playing with some bubbles. They open with a story...

The kids then go up to Ms. Melissa for another story that is a little more interactive...

Next is playing an instrument, today it is rhythm sticks. Taylor has clearly watched one too many episodes of Mythbusters with me because she immediately took the rhythm sticks and did her best impression of Jamie.

Bella is having fun.

They pull out the parachute and play The Wiggles song "Shaky Shaky"

After shaking the parachute we sing the "Bears are sleeping" song and all of the little bears get under the parachute and fall asleep.

After all this fun it is craft time. Today's story was "We all have Belly buttons" so Taylor very carefully gives both animals belly buttons.

After giving the animals belly buttons she decides that it needs some color so she spends some time giving the animals the correct hue. After looking at her masterpiece she decides that something is missing...they must need more belly buttons...

And then story time comes to a close and we bundle back up and go home. We are glad you joined us on our story time adventure!

Bella's Dedication

Bella was dedicated to the Lord this morning at Desperation Church by Pastor Michael Craft! Our KC family joined us this morning (Marian, Christine, Connor, Stephen, Angie, and Tatum) along with our church family for this joyous event. Bella was decked out in her little green outfit and was completely tuckered out by the time we got to church.

She sat in my seat during worship and after the second or third song I turn around and she had flopped over in the seat and had fallen asleep. For those that haven't attended church with us before you should know that our worship band JAMS!!! So it was really surprising that she fell asleep. What was even more weird is that when the music stopped she woke up. She was too cute laying in the seats so I had to take a picture of course!