Quick update

Ellie is not herself lately. The past few days she has been grumpy and refuses to sleep. On Thursday I put her down for a nap and she literally screamed and cried for entire nap time. For the record, I did check on her multiple times and she would dose of in my arms (and of course, be completely content the minute I walked into the room). She did the same thing that night but finally collapsed on her stomach and fell asleep. Yesterday was more of the same except Josh went in to check on her after we laid her down for a nap and they ended up napping together in the recliner. She doesn't have a fever, rash, or any other obvious symptoms. This is one of those time I wish there was a special parents' diagnosis machine that scans your child and tells you what is wrong.

In the midst of all this I thought yesterday would be a perfect time to finally get the pictures taken. And yes, it was awful and completely reaffirmed why I haven't taken the kids to the photo studio in a year. First I forgot Harrison's sweater vest (a tragedy, I know). Ellie was grumpy from the start. She did not want to stand, sit, smile, be tickled by Elmo, or hold Harrison's hand. She literally cried, fussed, and tried to climb off the stand the entire time. In spite of that, we got a few decent shots of her by herself (fruit snacks were involved). We did everything under the sun to try and make her smile; daddy even wore her hair bow and Big Bird wore her bonnet and ate her cookies at one point (which just made her more mad). Harrison, on the other hand, was a complete angel. He would occasionally blow raspberries and play with his undershirt but other than that he did everything he was supposed to. After the actual picture taking, we had to select which pictures to buy, my least favorite part of the experience. By then, the kids are DONE, climbing off the walls and screaming while I am trying to compare 20 pictures to one another, keep a running list of what I have ordered and for whom, and convince the photographer I don't want a cutesy board around every picture. In the end, I always walk out thinking "what in the world did I just order?"

On other news, we have a new addition to the family. My 6-year-old, $20 hand mixer finally bit the dust. I thought it was time for a grown-up mixer so for my birthday/happy dead mixer day, I got a new KitchenAid this week. I'm not sure who was more excited: Harrison or me. When the delivery man came, Harrison rushed to break me away from the vacuum and watched me from the window get the package. I brought the box into the kitchen and he immediately got one of his plastic knives from his toy kitchen collection and tried to open the top. Finally mommy stepped in and we set it up. He loves taking the bowl on and off and raising and lowering it with the crank in the back. Unfortunately our first use of the mixer turned into a complete failure but we're not going to go there...