Cereal

When Lily refers to the cereal Honey Bunches of Oats she consistently calls it "Hunchey Boats." I think it's so cute! This has been going on for a few weeks and it has thrown me off many times.

Grandma's e-mail

This is a cute story from when my mom had both girls in the car with her on Christmas Eve. My mom wrote me in an e-mail:

On the drive over here this afternoon Lily said "MY Grandma!" Camille responded "She's my grandma too!" "No," Lily replied [large pause], "Get your own." Not exactly the spirit of the season, but funny nonetheless.

Girls and dolls

Camille and Lily love having new PJs that match each other and their dolls. Thanks Nana! Santa brought Lily a new doll which didn't interest her on Christmas morning, but Lily has since bonded with Suzanna (named by her great grandfather, Boppy). With Lily in the crib tonight are 5 animals, Suzanna, and 3 blankies. Time to upgrade to the king size crib!

Camille and Lily enjoyed decorating sugar cookies on Christmas morning. We all enjoyed eating them! (I don't know how this started underlining, and now I can't get rid of it!)

Elf video

Check out the Smith family Elf video. Yes, that's Bruiser the Baylor bear as our 5th person. I couldn't find any picture of Kady the cat handy. You'll have to copy and paste this address because it doesn't work as a link off the blog. Stephanie

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/9Bb5b7nxeMoj52m7

Decorating the gingerbread house

Grandma and Grandpa got Camille and Lily a gingerbread house kit. Grandma came over on Saturday morning and we decorated in a cooperative effort. It was fun and actually turned out like the box intended! The girls had fun applying candies to the house, but Lily ended up more interested in eating the candies. Lily is obviously still interested in it because whenever she sees it she says "I made dat wit Granma."

Lily and Camille each decorated one side and one end. On the ends we put an L and a C on the doors. They liked that idea. Camille was meticulous about applying the candy. Camille worked on the back of the house because the roof ended up hanging out further, making it more difficult to put the candy on.

Advent calendars

Camille and Lily love opening the doors and getting the little chocolates out of their Advent calendars every night.

Camille's church choir

Pictures from the Primrose Christmas program

Lily with her teacher. Lily's class is too young for a performance, but she was very excited to see her teacher there and to watch the show.

Camille with her friend Zara. Zara's class did a rockstar theme program.

Camille with her friend Annie and her teacher.

Camille's kindergarten class was so cute doing their Little Drummer Boy song and then shaking maracas to Feliz Navidad (sp?).

Smith girls

This photo was taken before Camille's school Christmas program last week. I'll get more pictures up soon. Look, no braces!

Phillips/Alston/Smith family picture

It was great to have us together for Thanksgiving!

Exposed!

These were taken while Lily was air-drying her diaper rash and wanted to wear the Dora backpack. She was also wearing Camille's shoes around.

Sink baths

These were pictures from sink baths last weekend when Lily had a stomach virus with a diaper rash. This was the first time I've used Epsom salt for diaper rash and it worked amazingly! Moms, it worked overnight--you should give it a try.

Garbage disposal repair team

When Matt had to replace our garbage disposal recently he had a crew of little girls to help him. Camille actually was a big help even wearing a dress.

The inside of the disposal was gross, and very interesting to Camille and Lily.

Stephanie's post-surgery progression

Happy Thanksgiving! I am actually at home with Camille because she came down sick with a fever this morning. I'm working on the computer while watching The Goofy Movie (this can't capture my full attention). You'll have to wait for the current picture without my braces. I'll have to get Matt to take one.

I thought it would be interesting to see a compilation of pictures following my progression during 15 month process of braces, jaw surgery and recovery.

Look at these pictures from the bottom up.

I did get my braces off recently and now I'm adjusting to having impaired speech again because of the retainers I have to wear all the time for 3-6 months. After that I can wear them at night only. I'm happy to no longer have rough brackets making sores in my cheeks.

The first picture was taken 11/8/08 before my braces came off. My face is still slightly strange in sensation, but my surgeon says it should all recover within a year. If not, it's certainly bearable.

5/15/08-- When this picture was taken I was feeling much better but I was still quite numb in the face and learning to smile was a real process. Matt took a bazillion pictures as I looked in the mirror and tried to make a natural-looking smile.






5/3/08--In this pictures my muscles still wouldn't work for much of a smile, so I didn't try. The nose splint was removed but I had to keep the tape on my nose dry because it was keeping my nose in place. That makes for a dirty face under the tape! I fought acne for months after the surgery which the doctor said was also my body's reaction to the surgery. I also had to avoid me or any children from bumping my nose.

This was when I was getting ready to leave the hospital the night of 4/25/08 after surgery all day on 4/22/08. Hindsight, we should have just stayed in the hospital Friday night because it took several hours to get discharge paperwork and then wheelchair transportation down to the car. After driving all the way back to Rowlett we had to find an 24-hour pharmacy to fill my prescriptions. After that night of setting Matt's cell phone alarm clock for every 3 hours so Matt could get up to refresh my ice packs and crush up my pain medications in syringes with chasers of Boost, we had to go back downtown on Saturday morning for a followup in the doctor's office. All that riding in the car wasn't fun either. We wondered what the people in Walgreens thought when they saw me all swollen up with ice packs wrapped around my head. Matt thinks they probably just thought I had cosmetic plastic surgery, since it's so common these days.

This was taken in April 2008 before my surgery. The orthodontic work before surgery actually made my bite worse while they prepared me for surgery. That was my real bite.

We took this picture 8/30/07 right before I got my braces on.

Lily's presents

Lily had a great time opening birthday presents. She loves this cute mug and calls it her "coffee cup." Lily has never seen Peter Pan, but she had a wave of excitement when she opened the Tinker Bell pajamas. Infact, she immediately started trying to pull down her pants in the middle of the party to put them on.

Lily wanted this toy put together right away, but even this came "assembly required."
Knowing Lily obsession with shoes (hers and everyone else's) it's no wonder these slippers have been a hit.

She had a fun time, and then she had to hurry to get down for a nap before she turned into a pumpkin (or a 2 year old temper tantrum).

More of Lily's birthday pictures

Here are more pictures from Lily's birthday party. I tried to prepare all the food myself but when I went to thaw 2 containers of previously cooked and frozen meat sauce for my pasta casseroles, I discovered that one of them was chili (not bolognase meat sauce)! My mom saved the day bringing over a supplemental main dish. We ended up with lots of extra food and the arrangement was pretty.

Lily was very excited about her cake and especially the balloon plates that she carried around Walmart. She calls them her "Happy Plates." I didn't have any theme to the party, just a meal suitable for all ages. Lily changed her mind from a blue cake to pink at the last minute (thank goodness).

You can see Lily started eating with a fork and soon decided the full hand was a more efficient icing delivery method.

Little bit

It's so cute when kids say things incorrectly. I often think I'd never forget how they say it, and then it's gone. Lily consistently says "Libidit" for "Little bit." I think it's so cute!

Lily's 2nd birthday

Lily had a nice birthday with 10 people over for a family lunch celebration. Lily had fun opening presents but she wasn't much for picture-taking, always turning her back to the camera. Surely we have some more pictures somewhere of her cake and blowing out her candle, but Matt will have to get them for me when he gets back in town this weekend.

This is Lily dancing with her new musical birthday card. Thanks Gigi and Boppy!

It was cold this morning so I let the girls have their new hats and gloves. They looked like they were going out into a blizzard!