Fall

Fortunately, the weather has held out here. Matt says it's supposed to snow next week, but I guess winter was bound to rear it's ugly head eventually. For me, it's pretty much business as usual. Probably will take a little longer to get to work in the morning on days it snows, but otherwise I still just sit in an office all day. It's the girls and Matt that will sure miss the adventures outdoors:







Notice that Ally now refuses to look at me when I'm taking a picture. Will I ever get a decent photo of my girls together??

Look Who's Laughing!

Disguised!

I sure missed my girls while at work this week. I thought maybe if I gave them a disguise I could bring them into work with me and no one would notice. What do you think?

Twinkle Twinkle medley

DMV

The DMV is my personal representation of what hell will be like: long lines, incompetant staff, horrible customer service, and endless frustration.

The journey began last Thursday when I was pulled over by a cop on my way home from the hospital at 3:30 in the morning. Knowing that if you are driving through Mt. Horeb at 3:30 in the morning you will probably get pulled over because the Mt. Horeb policeman has nothing better to do at 3:30 in the morning in a small town, I made absolutely certain to observe all traffic laws including the speed limit. Sure enough, about a block away from my house I see those annoying lights behind me. I thought, "What could he POSSIBLY be pulling me over for?" Well, he ran my plates and noticed that the registered owner of the vehicle did not have a valid Wisconsin driver's license. (Since I avoid the DMV at all costs and since our Arizona licenses don't expire for about 40 years, we haven't bothered to get new ones). This is apparently a citable offense, as you are supposed to alert the DOT of an address change within 10 days of moving. He let me go, with the proviso that I get a new license within the next week. Boo.

So on my final free Friday before work starts, Matt and I and both girls headed to the DMV for a little slice of hell. We *thought* we had all the necessary paperwork to get our new licenses but we didn't even make past the front door. The staffer informed us that we didn't have the correct documents to show proof of residency. They would not accept the deed to our house, our cell phone bill, or our water treatment bill. Her arguments were:

1. We could have bought a house here, but not live in the house
2. The cell phone bill didn't count, it had to be a land-line
3. The water treatment bill didn't count, it had to be a water bill
4. They accept bank statements as well, but do not accept ANY statements printed from the internet

Here are my arguments:

1. Why on earth would we buy a house in Wisconsin, then pack all our kids and go to the DMV if we didn't absolutely have to? Of course we live here!
2. We don't have a land-line, only cell phones and a magic jack..welcome to 2009
3. How could we have a water treatment plan if we didn't also have water coming into the house, genius? And we don't have a water bill because it's all done online.
4. How can you not accept statements printed from the internet? 90% of my bills are paid online and I don't even see a paper statement anymore.

So we still don't have Wisconsin driver's licenses and I don't plan on going back to the DMV any time soon. I've had enough hell for now.

Glam Mom

You would think that with 8 weeks off of work I would have more time to blog, but NO!! I have been enjoying the rare moments with my girls. Sometimes after Lily falls asleep, I think, "I can just put her in the swing and go do the dishes or pick up" and then I remember that the dishes will still be there tomorrow, but Lily won't be so little forever. So my days have been filled with spending as much time as I can with Ally and Lily and enjoying every single minute of it.

We have tried to do some fun things, like going to the Dells, taking Ally bowling, visiting the library, going on picnic lunches. We've also spent a lot of time at the doctor's. Between the 4 of us, we have 8 separate doctor's appointments in the next 3 weeks. Many of you already know about my midnight trip to the ER. We noticed that Lily felt a little warm and took her temperature. It was about 100.5, which isn't that high but according to everything I could find online, 100.4 is the threshold for concern in babies under 3 months. I called the on-call nurse and she recommended that I bring Lily to the ER. They did some blood test and took her urine and it appears she had a UTI. They gave us antibiotics and sent us home. She is doing much better, but we have appointments for a renal ultrasound and a consult with a pediatric urologist in the next couple weeks to determine if there is anything abnormal with her kidneys.

At our follow-up appointment the day after, we also had them look at Ally and found that she had an ear infection, so both girls are on antibiotics but doing fine. While in the waiting room, I saw a woman with 2 children, a little girl near Ally's age and a little boy probably a few months old. The woman had flawless makeup and was dressed impressively. Her hair was done to perfection, and so was her daughters: the little girl even had highlights!! Then there was me: no makeup, wearing clothes that don't fit, my daughter who won't even let me brush her hair much less fix it nice, and to top it off, I'm covered in puke. Well, I guess some moms have it all together...some days I'm lucky if I even get a moment to shower! And I LOVE it! I love being a mom!!

Catching Up

Well, I've been on a blogging hiatus of sorts, but I did want to share a few pictures of Lily's Blessing and Ally's birthday. Enjoy!