All about M.E.

...as in Margaret Elaine. Maggie likes to hold Cash. This consists of me propping Cash on a pillow on Maggie's lap...

...and then waiting while she slowly lets him slip off.

She begged and begged to let her push Cash around her in dolly stroller (that's pretty much what she thinks Cash is... one of her dolls). I finally gave in.

Big mistake because after I took him out she was very sad. She doesn't yet understand when I say to her, "I'm sorry honey, but it's not safe for you to push Cash around in your stroller. Especially because I see what happens when you and your stroller get near stairs." If toys had abuse laws, Maggie's would all be taken away by DCFS and be in foster homes by now.

On a happier note, Maggie has learned to do summersalts. She starts at one end of the room and keeps on giong until somthing blocks her path. Like the wall, or furniture.

Also, Maggie got bangs. They are so in right now and boy does she love making a fashion statement!

Say Cheese!

Cash can smile! (can Scarlette do that yet Sarah? huh?)

Snow angel

Maggie got major cabin fever yesterday (we all have cabin fever... except Cash who just sits in his vibrating massage chair all day long, happy as a lark. oh to be a baby again). Anyways, so I got to do the fun "mother-of-a-toddler-living-in-a-super-cold-snowy-climate" ritual where I dressed Maggie in about 17 layers so that she could go outside and play for 5 minutes until her runny nose turned to frozen snot on her upper lip and she started crying and wanting to come back in. Well, here are some pictures to document her snowy adventure.

We went outside and checked out the snow.

It was pretty deep. She had a bit of a time walking through it

After walking around a bit she headed for the playset

Made it!

After all that work, she realized that the floor of the double swing was frozen into the ground. She was pretty disappointed. (No, I did not just stand there laughing at her frustration... at least not for too long. I scraped the snow away so that she could swing for a couple minutes.)

So, all those who live in California and complain when it's 54 degrees out, you can stick these pictures in your pipe, got that???

hair cut

these pics are espcially for all those who wanted to see my new hairdo. Ooo-la-la...

non-verbal communication

maggie LOVES her brother cash

but sometimes cash is a little uncertain of his feelings for his often spastic older sister

especially when she makes faces like this:

it kinda freaks him out some

but then maggie lets him know she's just jokin'

and cash flashes maggie an ultra cool look that says, "it's all good, sis."

new year, old custom...

Well, we've lived in our new apartment here in Driggs Idaho for about two months now, so of course we have to move. It just wouldn't be normal if we didn't, right? So yes, we are ONCE AGAIN moving. I'm married to a gypsy. Right now our entire house is packed into boxes waiting to be transported back over the mountain into Jackson, WY. Let me tell you, it sure is super fun to pack up a house with a 2-week-old baby and a 20-month toddler who wants to give baby snot covered kisses every 5 minutes. At one point we tried putting the baby on the table in his car seat to keep him out of Maggie's reach. But we forgot that Maggie is half monkey and can scale anything. Within 3 mintues both Maggie and Cash were on the floor crying. Don't fret, no one sustained any real injuries. Maybe Maggie was just trying to teach Cash about gravity. Moving on (no pun intended...), Ben and I were supposed to be unpacking all our boxes in our new home in Jackson today. But as luck would have it, luck was not on our side. Nor was the weather. The pass between Driggs and Jackson was both impossible and impassible for a big moving truck loaded with all our stuff. So now we're sitting in a mostly empty house waiting for the weather to clear. Ben wanted to attempt it anyway (he thinks he's the world's greatest driver- that must be why he has to finish traffic school by feb. 14, right?). I'm glad we didn't, though, because we ended up driving over the pass in our 4 x 4 Durango for a birthday party and it was a blizzard on the mountain. At one point Ben couldn't see anything in front of him and we "crashed" into the guardrail. I say "crashed" because it was covered with a huge mound of snow and so provided a nice cushy pillow, if you will, for the car to softly bump into. We made it over the mountain unscathed but i really think in a rear wheel drive, 3-ton truck, it would have been a much different story. Maybe a better story in the end, because crashing THROUGH a snow covered guardrail and flying through the cold mountain air sounds much more fascinating.

the WORST gift

this christmas i was ridiculously spoiled with all the great gifts i received. i was thinking that this was the best christmas ever, but that got me thinking when have i ever had a "bad" christmas... any time people want to give me gifts is great, right? so then i started thinking, "have i ever received a truly bad christmas gift?" i mean, even ugly, itchy wool sweaters aren't that bad, are they? at least you won't freeze your rear if a nuclear war breaks out and a cloud of debris covers the earth throwing us into the second ice age... anyways, i started really thinking about whether or not any of my past christmas gifts could be deemed "bad". and then i remembered christmas 2003. i had been married a little over a year and was spending christmas with my new in-laws. we had opened most of our gifts that morning, and we were starting to look through our christmas stockings. i opened mine to find a can of cat food. i thought it was supposed to be a joke since i didn't have a cat and according to my husband would never own one as long as we were still engaged in the bonds of matrimony. as i sat puzzling over what santa had left me, my husband walked into the room with something struggling to get out from under his shirt. i still hadn't caught on (i'm slow, okay?) when my husband pulled out a little black kitten. i was of course thrilled that i finally got my husband to cave in, thereby completing total spousal domination on my part. and the fact that i now owned a kitten was pretty neat, too. within a few minutes of holding my new pet i noticed something mildly different about him. not only was he incredibly small (ben thought he was the cutest because he was 1/2 the size of his litter-mates) but his neck was the same width as his head. it was almost eerie watching him walk around because he looked so top-heavy that walking should have been gravitationally impossible. but somehow my little christmas kitty defied all natural laws and scampered around the house all morning while i carved out a special little place in my heart just for him. pretty soon i decided it was time for my new kitty to eat his can of cat food that santa had left him. i set the plate of cat food on the floor. the kitten came running over and began to devour his breakfast. at this point i realized that my cat was not just sweetly small with a WWF worthy neck. he was actually deformed. it was as though there were small pockets in his throat where most of his food was forced into upon his swallowing it. he would then cough up the food and try again to get it down his actual esophagus. the reason he was so little became obvious: try as he might, the food kept ending up in his nasty throat pockets instead of his stomach. he did this weird contortionist dance and made these awful wheezing, gasping noises while eating. it was absolutely horrifying to watch. when he was done "eating" he wanted to curl up - no, not on my lap- on my shoulder and snuggle with me. it would have been sweet except he smelled so strongly of kitten chow and cat bile that i couldn't stand to have him anywhere near me.
a day or two after the holiday i took my christmas gift to the vet who confirmed that our cat had a major deformity. his esophagus muscles didn't function properly and didn't open to allow food to pass through. over the weeks he had been alive, his throat had stretched out from all the food he was desperately trying to get into his belly. the vet said that we could pay $40 a month for medicine that would have to be given to him daily before each meal to get his digestive system started up and relax his throat. as much as i had wanted a cat, $40 a month seemed a little much. so we left the vet and headed for the pet store where we returned the kitten for $30 of store credit (pretty lame if you ask me, because what were we going to buy at a pet store if we didn't own a pet???). i asked to store owner what would happen to the kitten. "we're going to have to put him down", was her answer. i left the store in tears feeling like an executioner.
so there you have it... my worst christmas gift ever. i think any gift that you have to exterminate within a few days of receiving is worthy of that title.