The Jones Girls

Maryssa is pigeon toed.    Her pediatrician referred her to an orthopedic doctor.  We met with him today.  

He evaulated her and said her knees and ankles are straight and the hps are causing the legs to move inward causing the pigeon toe.  He said that babies that are born from a mutliple birth can result in hip displasia.  Hip displasia is when then hips form outside of the sockets and require surgery to correct.  He took Xrays to check her hips.   Thank goodness the Xrays showed no hip displasia.

 He said in the old days they used to use braces and special inserts in the shoes.   They have done studies which show that they braces and special shoes don’t help.    So no braces or special shoes for Maryssa.   He said she will hopefully grow out of it but if she is still pigeon toed she will learn to  acclimate herself to it.

I had a meeting with Maryssa’s speech therapist, special ed preschool teacher, and the school psychologist about seeing if Maryssa should be in the special ed preschool for speech therapy.   She is doing pretty well and they said that she is too advanced and doesn’t quality.  That is music to my ears.

They did recommend that I put her in regular preschool so I am going to do that starting in January for a couple mornings a week. 

Maryssa will continue to go to speech therapy twice a week for 1/2 hour each day.  

Maryssa had a bad couple of weeks with meltdowns and general bad behavior.  She is over it now.   I guess it must have been a phase for her.

Today I took the girls to get Christmas Holiday portraits done.   Our appointment was at 3:00pm at JCPenney’s Photography studio.    It took me over 2 hours to get the girls ready…hair up in pin curls and dressed in their beautiful Christmas dresses with tights and new dressy shoes.

I made this appointment almost 2 weeks ago and the photographers have called me twice this week to verify we wanted the Christmas Holiday background and to confirm our appointment.    I reserved an hour appointment for photography.

We arrive and the photographer said she wasn’t ready for us.   She did not have the background put together yet and could I please turn their TV on and play a Disney movie for the girls while she sets up the studio.    So I did that.  She asked if I could come help her put the background together.  She had no idea how it was supposed to be put together.   So I helped as best as I could.   In the meantime, my girls have been intently watching the Disney movie for over 20 minutes.

We finished doing the background and then I had to get the girls unglued from the TV.  That was difficult.  Of course they didn’t want to go get pictures now because I interrupted them watching their Disney movie. 

Needless to say, the girls didn’t cooperate with the photo shoot.  It went horrible.   Not one good shot!!   Everyone was crying and protesting.  I was frustrated.  The photographer didn’t know what to do, so she pulled out a baby rattle to try to appease them.  Ummm, a baby rattle?   Give me  a break!!   She didn’t know how to position the girls and asked me to give her some ideas.   I was not impressed and very annoyed.

I cut the photo shoot short and told her this was going really bad.  We didn’t get one good shot.    I packed up the girls and headed out.  The photographer took me to the register and offered me a free photo sheet and appologized saying that she wasn’t ready for us.   I told her I was frustrated because it took me over 2 hours to get the girls ready and now I would have to reschedule and do it all over again.    I asked to speak to her manager.  Then the bomb drop…she said she was the manager!!    My mouth hung open in disbelief.    Not good at all.

When I got home, I called the manager at JCPenney’s and she had the district manager of photography call me.  I spoke to Nicole Medina and she apologized for the whole experience.  She said the photographer was very good and had 3 years experience being a photographer for JCPenney’s and that she became manager of photography for our JCPenney’s just a couple of weeks ago.    She offered me a few free photo sheets.

I had to reschedule our photo shoot for this Saturday.  We will also do a family portrait also.   Hopefully it will go much better than today…

I have to say the city of La Habra had the cutest bugs for Halloween!!  Savannah was the queen bee, Amanda was a butterfly, Miranda was a bumble bee and Maryssa was a lady bug.  I made all of their costumes.  They had cute too too’s.   They looked so cute!!

We took them trick or treating in the neighborhood at about 6:00pm.    I went with them for about 20 minutes than I ran home to give out candy.  They were with daddy and got back at about 7:30.   They came back with boat loads of candy!!

I would say we had about 120 trick or treaters visit our house.    There were some awesome costumes.  Some teenagers came to the door and one of the girls was a pick and was holding a shot.  She said she was “Swine Flu”.  I cracked up and had to take a picture of her.  Too funny!!

Today we attended the La Habra Moms Club Children’s Halloween and costume party at Vista Del Valle park.  I did most of the planning for the party.   My friend Angela did the decorations and my friend Corrie helped me plan the party as well as do some of the activities during the party.

The girls dressed in the bug costumes.  They were so cute, but Miranda kept tripping on her tutu and at the end of the party it was ripped, so I will have to fix that.  Poor Maryssa skirt was drooping so I will have to tighten the waist in her tutu.   Maryssa had a tough time during the whole party.  She cried during most of it.   She has been having a lot of meltdowns lately.

My friend Julie was hanging up the ghost pinata for us.    What a lifesaver Julie was!!

The first game we played was a age appropriate scavenger hunt.   WE had treat bags filled with goodies for the kids as their prizes.   The kids had to find certain things and then bring it back and trade it in for a treat bag.    We started with the 1-2 year olds.  They just had to find a little plastic pumpkin.  then we did the 3 year olds.  They had to find a little plastic pumpkin and a crayon.  then we did one for the 4-6 year olds.   They had to find a plastic pumpkin, a pencil,  and a crayon.  The older kids 7 and up had to find 2 plastic pumpkins, 2 pencils and 2 crayons.    All of the kids had a blast!!

We had lots of yummy snacks.  Angela made an incredible haunted cake!  I didn’t have time to eat it but my girls gobbled it down.   I made rice crispy treats with candy corn on top and I made homemade pumpkin pudding and brought whipping cream for the mommies to eat.  They loved that!

We did a pin the nose on the pumpkin.  The prize winner won a gift certificate at Red Robin for a free kids meal and a free sundae.  Corrie’s daughter Madeline won that.

Then the kids lined up and did a costumer parade around the park. All of us moms had candy and the kids accepted candy from all of us.   It was so cute.

They we all gathered around the pinata and the kids whacked away at the pinata.    It took all of the kids and then a couple of moms to finally break open the pinata.    We had about 40 kids there!!

What a fun Halloween party we had!!

Today I planned a really fun costume parade for the senior citizens at the La Habra Community Center.    

I baked over 70 peanut butter chocolate chip muffins yesterday.  I tell you, this is the easiest recipe and tastes like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup in a muffin..totally delicious.  I put each muffin in a bag and put a personalized sticker that said Happy Halloween, Hugs from the Jones Bugs.   

It was a difficult morning for me .  I had to get all of the girls in their bug costumes and at the Community Center by 9:30am.  I was 10 minutes late.    There were other moms and kids from the La Habra Moms Club  joining us . 

We were introduced and the kids got a standing ovation from the senior citizens…there were so many smiles, laughter and true cheer beaming from not only our children, but from the senior citizens themselves.     It was so fun!!  I think my girls stole the hearts of everyone…their costumes were truly darling.

Tonight was Savannah’s school fundraiser at McDonald’s.    The truly neat thing about this was the teachers and principal were helping out in the kitchen cooking the food!!  Savannah’s teacher, Miss Tarbell, was cooking the French fries.    McDonald’s gave 15% of all proceeds of all sales to our school from 4pm-8pm.  Very generous of them!!

Thank goodness Cliff went with me.  There must have been over a hundred people in that restaurant and 50 of them were in the play area.    It was packed!

We were suprised and happy to see Vanessa and her mom with her girls there.   Her girls, Tiffany and Stacey also go to Savannah’s School, El Portal. So we all sat together.

 I ordered Happy Meals for the kiddos and got some food for Cliff and me too.    The girls were no way interested in food…they wanted to PLAY!!  And play they did!!   

We lasted about an hour there and then headed back home,,,with LOTS of uneaten food that was the girls lunch the next day.