Wordless Wednesday: Turning Five!

Happy Birthday Buggaboo! I love you. :-)

So excited!

We're having Amelia's birthday party in a few weeks, and the Grandmas are coming! ( My mom, and my grandma, AKA Grandma Dancing.) Even better, one of her cousins is coming too. Amelia is so excited, and I'm guessing my niece is going to be pretty excited too when she finds out. I think this is will be some much needed happy for Dorothy. Woohoo. :-)

Tickets are really cheap, so since the Grandmas were already coming, I got the idea today that Dorothy should come too and we got her a ticket.

The last time she came to visit she was only a few years old because it was Amelia's first birthday. Now I just have to convince the Grandma's that they want the spend the money to go to disneyland one of the days while they are here. (Amelia and I have passes.) Wish me luck!!

Halloween Crafts

Amelia was sick on the day that her preschool class had signups for the Halloween party. Apparently no one wanted to do the crafts, so that's all that was left. I need two craft ideas. It's a group of ten to twenty children, all of them are four or five.

I found one that looks really cute, it's sparkly spiders. But, I still need another craft project. Anyone have any ideas? I'll post more craft projects as I find them.

Edited to add: I found another cute craft that I think might be a bit simpler for 4 year olds. What do you all think?
It's a paper plate pumpkin. I thought it was pretty cute.

Wordless Wednesday: Faces

Skirball Center

A few weeks ago a couple of friends and I took our kids to the Skirball Cultural Center in LA. They have a large museum there, and a huge Noah's Ark exhibit. The kids had an amazing time. I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked because even with 3 adults and 3 kids, there was a lot of chasing going on!


Amelia and Sydney out in another part of the Center. it was really beautiful up there.



Waiting for the animals to drop out of the ark. Sydney was somewhere else turning a crank that carried the stuffed animals up into the ark.

In this room there was all sorts of stuff the kids could touch and turn and make noise with. Many of the cranks and levers made noises or winds to represent the great storm.


Anthony was making it rain.



More noisemakers, Anthony loved these!


A small part of the Ark that the kids could climb in and out of.

This was one of Anthony's favorite parts. It's a model of the ark, with a plethora of animals to play with and move around.


Amelia really enjoyed it too.



Anthony's favorite part though was the poop. With all of those animals there would have been a lot of excrement right? So they had a basket full of rubber poo from all different animals. The kids could dump out the "treasures" and they they used brooms and dustpans and mops to clean it up. It was really cute, even though it sounds gross.


In one of the rooms there is a net tunnel. The kids climbed up in it, and the could go all around the top of the room.




In the last room they had a little jam session.


The kids got instruments to play and the employees played some drums.




After we were done inside we went outside and the kids got to participate in an archaeological dig.



A couple sitting next to us had a little boy about Anthony's size. The father asked me if Anthony was also 3 ( like their son.) He was a little surprised when I told him no, the little man is 1. He's getting close to 2 though!



And the parting shot. In the stroller, with his bluh bluh, Ant was ready for a nap!

Who does this kid belong to?

Earlier today Amelia asked if we could bake something. I said yes and gave her a few options. She picked cookies. We're out of Peanut Butter (her favorite) so we made chocolate chip cookies. When we were finished I asked if she wanted to try one. Her answer? "No Mom, I don't want chocolate. Can I have an apple instead?"

Who does this kid belong to? She's definitely not my daughter!

Disneyland!

We went to Disneyland today. The kids had such a great time. We are so lucky to live close enough that we can be there within an hour. Having an annual pass is pretty nice. I didn't take pictures today, but here are some from a couple weeks ago.

This one is where Anthony explains to me how he really feels about cotton candy.




Amelia of course adores the cotton candy. She begs for it every time we go. Once in a while I actually say yes.





She also loves to go play in the Bug's Life water area. It's really cute, the area is set up like a yard would be if you were bug sized. There's a garden hose nozzle that has to be at least 12 feet tall. Amelia has a great time chasing the water drips.










Unfortunately, she tends to chase the water away from me (no matter where I sit) so I get lots of shots of her backside.









Anthony isn't as crazy about the water area, so he usually sits with me on the benches and watches the other kids play. This particular day he was so ready for a nap. I think this was actually Anthony saying cheese for me. Ha. He's a funny guy!




I love this picture because all that's really in focus are her feet, which are at least a foot off the ground. The girl likes to jump. A. Lot.

The Fresh Beat Band aka our new favorite show, sort of

Let me start by saying I'm generally not a fan of Children's TV. I hate watching kid shows. Jeff on the other hand, enjoys sitting with the kids, snuggling on the couch and watching Noggin. That's not me. I'm more likely to sit with them and read books than watch children's programming. Anyway, the point is, I'm probably not the best person to be writing about a kid's show. However I just had to post about the Fresh Beat Band.

In case you're not familiar, it's a new show on Nickelodeon. It features four kids/young adults, named Kiki, Marina, Twist and Shout, singing and playing music while they smile a lot and run around. They are all attending music school and appear to live in apartments next to each other. The show airs at noon, I think. It started last Monday, but we've been seeing videos about it for the last couple of months on Noggin. Amelia loved every one of the videos. She'd get up and dance around like a crazy person. Once they ads for the show started airing, she asked when we could watch it. So I set the DVR to record all new episodes and Monday afternoon at naptime, I put the first one on.

I actually sat and watched most of the episode with her as I wanted to make sure it was appropriate (we don't usually watch shows on Nickelodeon.) Amelia and I had very different opinions of the show. She absolutely loved it. She jumped up and down and danced around for probably 90 percent of the episode. I spent a lot of time rolling my eyes and cringing. For a 4 year old, the show is great. Amelia adored it. She has asked to watch it again at least 10 times. (Most of the time she was told "No".)

While I found it a little hard to watch (the characters are way too perky for this Mom) it seems like it's an okay show for kids. The songs are catchy, and I'm sure I'll wake up singing them like I do the other kid's music I hear. I like that it features so much music and that it seems to encourage my child to get up and dance instead of sitting on her bum just watching. This definitely won't be a show I sit with my kids and watch but I think it's alright.

So I'm curious what other parents think of The Fresh Beat Band. Have you watched? Do your kids like as much as mine does? Are other parents cringing as much as I do when it's on? Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

Here's a clip in case you haven't seen them yet. (Sorry for the poor quality video, that was all I could find.)

Tackle it Tuesday-Books books everywhere!

My kids love their books. Sometimes, however, I wish they would read only one book at a time. Apparently in our house, you must pull every book off the shelf before you can read. And when you're done reading, and Mom makes you pick them up, you must throw them on the shelf in a heap.

So this week, we are tackling their shelves. Anthony's shelf didn't have any books on it, and Amelia's shelf had too many. So we took all of the board books and put them in Ant's room. I think it looks way better. What do you think? (And yes, more often than not, my son is only in a diaper. That boy hates wearing clothes and really hates wearing shoes. He runs off as fast as he can when I put a new diaper on him.)


The before pictures:




The after pictures:

Happy Birthday Little Bug!

Today my baby girl turns 4. I can't believe that it was 4 years ago today that I had my first c section. I experienced pain (not being totally numb was pretty rough as was my first attempt at breastfeeding). But I got the best gift. A sweet snuggly little baby girl. She liked to sleep a lot, but only when being held. It took us a while to work out eating and sleeping, and she scared us a little by not gaining weight. But she did get to her birth weight eventually, even if it did take a month.

And here we are four years later. She's in preschool and gymnastics. She has a baby brother she loves to harass. She adores all things fairy and princess. Her favorite food is peanut butter. She is intelligent, and strong willed, and can be incredibly sweet as well. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Sometimes I wish I could keep her just the way she is, not let her grow older, but then I guess I'd miss out on all the things she has yet to be.

I could do better.

But I'm sitting in my bed with a sick kid who is snuggling me. Every time I get up she cries (real tears!) so I stay in my bed with her. We're watching Noggin. Ant is napping and the laundry really isn't that important. So I'll sit here with her, playing on my laptop, rubbing her back, until she falls asleep.

81 words

Typing Test

Wordless Wednesday (First day of school!)

Am I ready for this?

I did it. I signed Amelia up for preschool. I wasn't sure if we would get in or not; there were 3 spaces for January remaining when I called yesterday, but they hadn't done any of the registrations yet. So I called my dear husband at work and ,harassed him, threatened him, asked him nicely to fax everything over to them. And I just checked and they billed my credit card. So, I'm assuming that means we're in! They only notify you if you don't get in, which I think is not cool but whatever. So for 9 hours a week my kid will be in someone else's care. I will have to volunteer some in the class, so at least I'll be around, but I'm still a little nervous. However, I think she is more than ready. She is obsessed with the idea of school and she loves going to gymnastics. I think she will thrive in school once she gets used to it. Now I just have to get used to idea.

Tuesday Ramblings

What is up with all the spam in my email today? Gmail is usually great at filtering it, but today I have had a bunch of emails promoting Viagra, Phentermine 37.5 mg and even one asking me to help a Nigerian prince get some money to the US and if I help him, I will make a lot of money myself. Right.

Amelia is cracking me up today. She is very much into the dramatic play, and loves to be a kitty or a mermaid or whatever and she totally takes on that role. When she is a kitty she will try and sit on my chest like that cat would, she hisses and claws when she is mad and purrs and rubs on my legs when she is happy. It's pretty funny, I think she will be an actress one day. Anyway, (what was my point again?? oh yeah the acting like different critters.) So today she told me she was a robot and started talking in a mechanical voice and sounding like a robot. I asked her to go put her nighttime diaper in the garbage. Her response?(in her little robot voice of course.) "The robot is broken. Maya the robot can't put the diaper in the garbage." So I responded in my best robot voice "The mommy robot says you have to go sit on your bed in time out to be repaired if you can't put your diaper in the garbage. You choose." And she told me Maya the robot was all fixed and she went and threw the diaper away. Hey if you can't beat em, join em! And that was one less battle I had to fight today.

Random

Another Random post. You're all shocked aren't you? We're home today because Amelia had a fever last night. She slept a ton and seems better this morning. Not sure what was going on with her, but after a long nap yesterday, and sleeping 13 hours last night, she is fine now.

Anthony is doing well. He is doing great with a mix of formula and breast milk. He is sleeping better and he's generally happier over all. Makes me know that I made the right choice giving him formula too. I am having a hard time convincing Amelia to not feed him food. She is trying to feed him some corn flakes as I type this. Be right back.

Okay I'm back now, crisis averted. The funny thing is he usually loves whatever she tries to feed him. He gets so mad when I take it away from.

Oh and since you all already know I'm kind of obsessed with buying a house, I thought I'd share about a cool place I found for homeowners. It's called directbuy. They actually were talking about the company on the news the other night. This woman wanted to redo her kitchen, but didn't have the $60,000 to get the dream kitchen that was shown in her first quote. So she joined directbuy, and saved a fortune on her cabinets. She also ordered everything herself, and bid out the installation to different installers. She got the exact same kitchen for $20,000. It was a beautiful kitchen!! You can't buy online from this company, you have to go to the store, and you have to pay a hefty membership fee, but it sounds like it's really worth the cost.

Amelia quote of the day.

Mama, I'm gonna grow bigger and bigger and bigger all they way to up there. (Points to the ceiling) I'm gonna grooooooooooooooooooww so tall. (Stands up on her tip toes.) But first, I need some more food.

Let me start by saying, I LOVE my children. I am so blessed to be able to stay home wit them. But some days, I am certain they are trying to send me to the looney bin. Amelia is especially good at this. Here is my latest tale of how Amelia is trying to make me crazy.

I am not a good breakfast eater, so a lot of times I'll have a shake or smoothie concoction for breakfast. One morning I made the mistake of not putting the smoothie powder away. On this particular morning, Jeff had some pancakes or waffles and left the syrup out on the counter. ( You can see where I'm going with this can't you?)



















Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

(Yes, that is a straw she has so she can drink the syrup and powder up Yum yum.)

Now if I could just figure out how to keep the ink pens away from my furniture I'd be good.

The spider bit me and flew away!

Amelia got her first bee sting today ( at least I think that's what it was.) She and her friend were playing in the back yard. Amelia came running in screaming and trying to wipe her hand on me. I asked what happened and she said the bug bit her. So then I freak out because we have some nasty spiders around here (black widows, brown recluses, you get the idea.) I asked Amelia and her friend what kind of bug it was and I got blank stares. We tried to get the kids to show us where it happened, and they kept showing me the welt on her hand. LOL When I asked what happened her friend said, the spider bit her, and then it flew away. Looking at the wound we decided it was a bee sting and she has been fine all afternoon and evening.

oh and

One more funny thing. We were on our way home from the store and Amelia saw a car with one of those car covers on it, and she thought it was the coolest thing in the world. When we got home, she wanted to know why our car didn't have a tent. I had to explain that our car has a house (garage) to live in so it doesn't need to have a tent like that other car. I don't think she bought it since she just told me we needed to go to another store and buy our van a tent...

Elephants don't fart!

While we were sitting on the couch the other night, Jeff let one rip. Amelia looked at him in total disgust.

Jeff: Amelia, did you hear that? There is an elephant under the couch.
Amelia: No daddy. Elephants say BRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOO. Elephants don't say fart. Daddy says fart.


I almost fell of the couch I was laughing so hard. This kid is so serious sometimes!