Monday, November 1, 2010

Sweet sisters

Back to the beginning of August....it started off with a bang...2 sick girls. Round 3 of Hand, Foot, and Mouth virus struck our home - Sadie Beth's 3rd time and Ainsley's 1st. It was awful...talk about pitiful girls. I can't think of any minor illness I would want less in our house. I thought I might pull my hair out, but we survived.
Ainsley recovered much more quickly than Sadie Beth, but she ended up with sores on her two sucking fingers, which was pretty sad.
Ainsley decided to start standing up in the beginning of August - around 9 months old.
Sadie Beth has been quite the bear each time she has come down with hand, foot, and mouth. She feels crummy for a few days while she has a fever. Then, the fever breaks and the sores come, which cause incredible pain in her mouth. She feels better and wants to eat, but the sores make it too painful. She then refuses to eat ANYTHING we offer her, with the rationality only a 2 1/2 yr old can demonstrate, which in turn causes her to act like a crazy person with no sense whatsoever.
Unfortunately, the sores can last for 3-4 days, which means 3-4 days of hunger, refusal of food, and awful behavior from my sweet Sadie Beth.
It takes about 6-7 days for the entire illness to run its course. UGH.
If hand, foot, and mouth never visits our home again, we'd be alright. Unfortunately, it's incredibly common and VERY contagious.
I suppose, however, if it weren't for HFM, I wouldn't have been able to capture this incredibly sweet sister moment between my girls.
Thank goodness for Sesame Street and Super Why! I'd never survive HFM without them.
And thank goodness for these smiles, or I might have run for the hills.
David was great while the girls were sick - he would make me leave the house for a little while each night after they went to bed to clear my head.
Ainsley didn't have it nearly as bad as Sadie Beth did.


Ainsley really has started taking more of an interest in whatever Sadie Beth is up to.
She ADORES Sadie Beth...it's so much fun to see how they are so different in so many ways as Ainsley grows and shows more of her personality.
Dressing up in what were once my window treatments from college.
Ainsley enjoyed this for a minute.
But decided she wanted nothing to do with it just a few minutes later. Now I think if I put her in their I wouldn't be able to get her out without a fit. She LOVES the bathtub now...
Sadie Beth played outside with this baby one day by herself for a LONG time. It was so much fun watching her through the window when she didn't know I was peeking.
I hardly have any pictures of me and the Boobear. Most of the ones we've attempted have turned out terribly.
We had fun after naptime one day while Sadie Beth was still asleep.
Ainsley is such a fun girl. She brings us so much joy and her smiles just brighten up the room.
Sadie Beth wore this dress for her first birthday party.
Look at those sweet baby feet. Love'em.
How can you not smile when you see this?
Ainsley can't get enough of this book. She LOVES it. If David starts reading it from the opposite end of the house, she will come crawling as quickly as she can to hear him and turn the pages. They've realy been able to bond over it.
Ainsley is serious about her food. She would have given up pureed food much earlier than Sadie Beth, but it's so much easier to make sure she gets her veggies this way. She eats by the handful.
Sadie Beth was taking care of her babies - one of them being "Crabby the kickboard."
Standing up on the activity table - and quite proud of herself.

And now we've officially entered into the "getting into everything" phase.
We never had to childproof really with Sadie Beth. Ainsley is an entirely different story.
I love watching Sadie Beth care for and nurture her babies - it's so neat to see how God just makes little girls with that innate drive.
Ainsley has since moved on from sitting at the bookshelf to destroying the bookshelf area - it is her goal to see how many times a day she can pull off every single book. We're working on it.
This was how she was sleeping one night I came in to take her potty. We had company over that evening, so my guess is Sadie Beth had a hard time falling asleep knowing fun was being had downstairs without her. We were proud of her though, because she went right to bed without any protest or us having to go back up to settle her down.
Who knew a sack of potatoes could be so much fun?!?

Sunday morning photo shoot with our neighbor's pretty flowers.
Such a beautiful girl!!!!!
And of course a very pretty little sister too!
I love those big blue eyes!


Ainsley LOVES sitting and watching the outdoors. Now she sits and watches our crazy squirrels, excitedly shouting, "Dogdogdogdog...." She thinks all animals are dogs.
Ready for preschool! And so excited for her backpack! She still occasionally says to me, "Thank you Mommy for my Froggy backpack. I really like it and I'm glad you got it for me."

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