Toast 2 Mom

One More Birthday Present

Now that Sydney is in pre-school a couple days a week, I get some one on one time with Cheekers. I rarely get any one on one time with Sydney anymore. I've missed that. For her birthday, I planned for the two of us to do something, just us.

A children's theatre here in town is putting on a performance of The Little Mermaid...perfect! Today was finally our Mommy and Sydney's Day Out! We went to the show this afternoon. It was a sort-of spin on the movie version. It had the same characters and similar storyline, with the twist of it being actors for a children's play, interacting with the audience. I thought it was adorable. I think Syd did too. She got a poster and "Ariel" signed it after the show.

Afterward, we decided to head further downtown for some yogurt. It was picture perfect afternoon. We sat outside on the picnic table and enjoyed our treat. When we got home, we painted our nails, colored her new poster and played some games in our latest Highlights magazine.

It was a super, duper, fantastic day! :)

 
 

Happy Halloween!

It's been a busy day in our household. We went to our first Nebraska away game as a family. I had a story to tell on this game, but that will have to be told another day - it's late. After the game, the girls rode home in Vanna, took a mini-nap, got home, took a bath, got on their costumes and off we went again.

We got invited to a party. The hosts had a fantastically decorated and spooky house. The girls experienced their first real trick-o-treating. We did a little treating last year, but Sydney was more into passing out candy than getting it. And this year, we were pretty sure our new home couldn't live up to the treaters we had last year at our house in Omaha (over 300 treaters!).

Here are a few photos of our evening. Hope your Halloween was safe, fun and spooky!

 
 
 

Halloween Tricks...Such a Treat

Yesterday was no treat for getting Cheekers in her Halloween shirt. Today, Mommy pulled some tricks...and won. See my purrfect litte kitty below...and her best Halloween face for last!

 
 
 

Halloween Fashion Police

Some days I want to go run and screaming out of my house when it comes to dressing my girls. Today was one of those days. I have so many more years of this fashion drama, it's not even funny...not funny at all.

Today Sydney had a party at her school for Halloween. It was also to be her Halloween program. The program was postponed until Tuesday because the weather was iffy today. I bought a Halloween shirt for Syd and Natty...as I always have. Never before in years past have I received 'tude over a fun, sparkly Halloween shirt. Today, though, Sydney kept saying, "Mommy, I really just don't like this shirt." I tried to convince her since it was her party that all of her classmates would be wearing orange and black. Umm, oops, they weren't. A couple of the boys in her class were.

Then thinking Natalie would be in the Halloween shirt spirit, she overheard Sydney saying "no" and "I don't like this". So when I brought Natalie her clothes, not only did she say the same things, she worked that baby temper of hers and ended up wearing nothing black, orange, sparkly or labeled Halloween. Oh Good Grief (in the spirit of Charlie Brown).

Below is a picture of Sydney before school today. Despite the lack of enthusiasm (as the picture displays), I guess she did end up having a good time at her party. I heard a lot about orange frosting, sprinkles and cookies...go figure. I guess next year I'll have to buy a shirt with a cookie on it!

Pumpkin Fun for Everyone (or maybe just fun for one?)

It's almost the end of October, and the girls and I have not been to a pumpkin patch yet. Going to a pumpkin patch is such a great event to participate in when you're from the mid-west. It's been a little harder to get into the harvest spirit down south, though. No leaves a-changin, not really that cold outside, no crisp smells in the air. Regardless, you can't miss a pumpkin patch in October.

So I was all geared up to hit the patch today...only to discover that there aren't many pumpkin patches around here. And the main one, that's supposed to have all the goods, is closed on Wednesday. What?! How can a pumpkin patch be closed three days before Halloween?! That's just not right.

I was very bummed that my plans went bust, but still was determined to have something to do with pumpkins as part of our day. So I decided the girls and I could carve our Jack o' Lantern.

Now maybe you recall back around Valentine's day when Mommy got all geared up to bake heart cookies with my girls to celebrate the day - and how I ended up in the kitchen all by myself. Yeah, today was Valentine's day all over again.

Natalie took a marathon nap today - which she desperately needs because her new teeth coming in are making her quite cranky. And Sydney, while I hoped would be all into the pumpkin fun had no interest in scooping out goop or washing off seeds. She did give me lots of feedback how I was to carve the face, "mean and scary."

Below are a few pictures from our pumpkin day of fun. While my girls weren't quite on board yet today for the craft and pumpkin bonding experience, I did treasure the enthusiasm tonight hearing their ohhs and ahhs when we stuck a candle in old Jack to watch him glow.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Shamu, Elmo and Fish

As promised, here are a few photos of the activities we particpated in at Sea World over the weekend. We saw Shamu swim and flip, Elmo sing and dance and fish float and blow bubbles.

 
 
 
 

Well, I haven't dealt with this one before...

Just when I was starting to feel like parenting and our day-to-day life was just the same-old, same-old, a challenge presents itself...

I've been a little out of touch lately. It seems like we've just been doing our routine as normal, and therefore not much new to share. After the birthday festivities wore down, we were back to pre-school, back to errand running, back to laundry, dishes, keeping the house tidy and the cats fed. No drama...and nothing too exciting.

This weekend, though, we did have some events... Yesterday we made it back to Sea World. (I'll post some pictures of our fun times tomorrow.) Being just a couple hours away, we bought a season pass to SW. It was such a bloody hot summer here, that we haven't been back since May. Since the fall has been so nice, we wanted to get in another trip.

We had a great day. Before SW, we stopped at these premium outletstores on the way down. Daddio was kind to hook Mommy up with a little shopping. (I think he's trying to get some birthday ideas for me....I was happy to oblige. :) We rolled into SW just in time for naps. No worries, though, the girls surged through the afternoon with fierce energy. We did Shamu, a monster mash Sesame Street show with the Count and Elmo, fed the dolphins, looked at the sharks. Sydney and I also rode our second roller coaster together - the Shamu Express!

By the time we got home, late, the girls were wiped! We got them both to bed just after 9 o'clock. It was instant silence. About 11 o'clock, though, is when our second event took place this weekend....this one not so fun.

Daddio and I were watching the Giants lose in the final minutes. All of the sudden we heard a *thump* and then Cheekers start to whimper and cry. I was confused what could have happened. There had not been a noise coming from her room in almost two hours. I thought maybe one of the cats opened her door. It was the thump that I was unsure of. Whatever, it was, I flew up the stairs and raced to her door. When I opened it, I found Cheekers, crawling to the door, OUT OF HER CRIB! Somehow, someway, in some form of exhaustion state, she managed to launch up and over her crib rails, then crawl across the room, almost to open the door.

Now, this is not a total shock to me. There have been a few incidents lately when I've felt she was going to be done with the crib soon. I've put her down for nap a couple times and she's been so mad, she's almost launched herself out. That was about three weeks ago. She hasn't made an attempt over that time period. Last night's scene totally confused me because she was not mad, she was extremely tired....and I assumed asleep.

The good news is nothing happened to her when she fell out - thank heavens! The bad news is...well I slept like you know what last night. We had a storm here last night. Any time it thundered, I thought she had fallen out of her bed again. The other bad news is, I now have to try and figure out how to solve this problem...and fast. We didn't have to deal with this with Sydney. Syd would never have dreamed of escaping. Natty is crafty. Daddio is hopeful that last night's attempt will cause Natty to not want to try it again. I'm not convinced.

So, rule number one in parenting....never assume things are going too smoothly. It'll change as fast as it takes a baby to hurdle out of crib!