Split lips and lost stitches

Well, yesterday was an exciting day at the Libutti house... our big event of the day was going to be signing up Michaela for swimming lessons, but at about 10am, Jenna smashed her face into our coffee table and that changed all of our plans.
She split her bottom lip right on her lip line and bit into the top of her bottom lip. It started bleeding right away, which freaked out Michaela, who started shrieking, "There's blood everywhere... I'm going to call Gammie!" While I was trying to clean up and calm down Jenna, Michaela got my mom on the phone and told her that "blood is everywhere!" So I started yelling so my mom could hear, "Everything is okay! There is not blood everywhere. We're okay!" Things started to settle down, the bleeded abated, and I was able to see that we should have the doctor take a look at it. We went to her pediatrician, waited an hour, and when he saw it thought we should bring her to a plastic surgeon. We got an appointment for 1pm at the plastic surgeon's office, stopped home for a quick sandwhich and to get Michaela on the bus, and then we were off. We waited at the plastic surgeons for almost 2 hours and then Jenna got her first stitches- two on the top of the lip and one on the lower bottom lip. She SCREAMED when they were going in, as you can imagine, and Dan and I both had to look away. She immediately started playing with them and sucking on her bottom lip. Dan went back to work and I stopped at the grocery store. By the time we got in the checkout line- not ten minutes after we left the surgeon's office- I looked at Jenna's mouth and she had eaten the two stiches in her lip off. So of course I called the surgeon's office and they said not to worry about it. Jenna seemed fine- she ate well, drank well, and generally seemed relieved that those annoying stiches were out!
Later that night I gave the girls their bath and while I was drying Jenna off, I looked at her face and the last stitch had come untied- it was just string coming out of her face. So I pulled that one out, too. After all that anxiety and waiting all day for doctors, as well as $40 in co-pays, we had nothing to show for it except the same split lip we started with!
Amazingly, she started healing so quickly that it is really not open anymore and is barely noticeable. Michaela did almost the exact same thing when she was a bit older and has a tiny, tiny scar on her lip so Dan and I were joking that the girls have matching beauty marks now! I think splitting your lip open is a rite of passage of sorts... it seems that every kid has done it at some time or another.
So today is another day and we are going to try again to sign up Michaela for swimming lessons!

Best pics of the month

These are my favorite recent pictures of the girls... both taken within the last week. Thanks for indulging me!

The family that sleds together... stays together

We hit the Town Park slopes on Sunday and brought the girls sledding for the first time. There were two areas- one a bit steeper than the other and Michaela was brave and tried both. Jenna stayed mostly in her baby sled and enjoyed being pulled around and watching her sister. Both Mommy and Daddy rode down the steeper hill with Michaela. It was a blast.

Michaela enjoyed two birthday parties this weekend- one at Jeepers and one at a bowling alley. Popular girl! She was pretty pooped from all the excitement by Sunday night.

Yesterday was our first day of the vacation week and we went to McDonald's with the Strauss boys and Judy followed by a great trip to the State Museum. We rode the Carosel a few times and stayed for long time on the NYC Subway car, aka "the train". The kids loved yelling, "All aboard!" and taking our tickets. One place we stopped had a wishing well and the kids all threw in pennies and made wishes. Michaela told me her wish... "I wish Brian and Bethie would come here right now... I hope it comes true!" I told her that I wished they could be here, too. However, they are at this moment enjoying the sun and sand of western Mexico on their vacation. Hope they are having a ball!!

Today is February SonShine, our church's vacation Bible school, in the afternoon. Michaela will go for three afternoons and then there is a closing program on Thursday night... we'll have to tape The Office...

Snow Day! And then another snow day!

Here's the scene: Blizzard warnings are posted for our area. 20+ inches of snow falling. Bone-chilling wind chills. All area schools are closed. Michaela's outfit for the day? Hot pink gaucho capri pants, an orange SpongeBob Squarepants "Tropical Bash" t-shirt, and flip flops.
She truly is a summer girl.

So we had two snow days in a row but today was back to school. Michaela had her Valentine's Day party at school today and made an absolutely beautiful card for us that says, "I love you from the bottom of my heart to the tips of my toes" and it had her footprints on it in purple paint. It was really sweet. Now she is off for the President's Day week but is going for three days to vacation Bible school at our church. I'm sure we'll plan some other fun activities and maybe a few playdates.

Happy Valentine's Day (a few days late).

Catching up

Whew! It was a busy week and very busy weekend for the Libutti family... thankfully all good, fun things to keep us occupied. Michaela was the VIP at school on Thursday and was very happy to hold that honor. We all went to the dentist on Tuesday and unfortunately, Michaela has a few more cavaties to get filled. The dentist explained to us that her teeth are very ridged- a genetic condition- and it has nothing to do with her brushing. He said she might have even formed the cavaties before they even broke through her gums! We go back next month to get that taken care of.

On Wednesday, we met up with Sara and Caitlyn at Color Me Mine, a paint your own pottery studio. Michaela and Jenna made dinner plates for themselves and did a terrific job! The plates get fired and glazed and we can pick them up this Wednesday. We had a great time visiting and painting and generally reeking havoc on the place.

Friday I took the girls to Picture People to get Valentine's pictures taken with all of us in our matching tshirts. They turned out great and Jenna spoke spontaneously to a stranger (the photographer) for the first time- a huge milestone! We surprised Daddy with a triple matted frame with pictures of Jenna and I, Michaela and I and the three of us.

This weekend we had a fabulous dinner at Aunt Kathy's on Saturday night and heard all about her trip to Hawaii. Then on Sunday, we had a family reunion with the entire Libutti/Folk clan. It was such fun to see Michaela and Jenna with Olivia. The above picture is from the dozens of pictures we took- we're lucky the girls didn't go blind from all the flashes! Jonesy put on a nice ham dinner for us and we all enjoyed lots of laughs. Like Michael says, "Good times!"

This week is much quieter for us... not much going on except for Valentine's Day which we are not doing too much for. (I tell Dan: I love you, you love me, let's not spend lots of money re-telling each other... I'm such a hopeless romantic!!) Michaela has her 100th day of school on Wednesday and the class will celebrate with a big party on Thursday. She has to bring in 100 of something, so of course we are going to bring in 100 M&Ms.

Enjoy the week!