Christmas shopping with Blayne

Blayne's school doesn't have a traditional 'Santa's Secret Shop' which I am really quite happy about (especially after hearing a friend's kid spent $55 this year!!), but I love the idea that the kids get to go and pick out a special gift. I decided this year that it would be great fun to take Blayne to the local Dollar Tree...where EVERYTHING is a dollar!! I gave her a 1 gift limit for each of our family members which meant a $13 investment for me. It was well worth the investment!! And since, I couldn't be there to pick out my own gift, I enlisted a friend to help with the process. I stayed to help shop for all of the other family members until it was time for my gift. I exited and left Molly in charge of my gift and, of course, the paying part. I know, I know...I left MOLLY in charge of my kid, IN a store, CRAZY!! I headed next door to hobby lobby and waited and waited and waited for a phone call saying that they were done. After 2 phone calls to check and make sure that everything was okay and that they had enough money, I gave up and headed to sit in the car. I think it took them 3 times as long to pick out my gift as it did EVERYONE else in the family!! They finally arrived and we went home to start wrapping!! But before wrapping all of these precious gifts, we had to take a picture of each one and why she bought them!! Here they are:

Uncle Kenny so lovingly got a package of silly straws because 'he is soooo silly!!'

Aunt Heather received a beautiful new coffee mug because 'she loves hot chocolate!!'

Jacob got a great play motorcycle (which I totally thought she would get for grandpa), but no good reason!

Lauren got a squishy octopus which I think she really just wanted for herself:)

Grandma got this lovely LIME green kitchen towel which everyone immediately turns to see if it has a Christmas decoration on it. Ummm...it does not and no, it does not really match her kitchen!!

We specifically went straight to the candy aisle to shop for Grandpa because 'he loves chocolate!!' and got him this.

For Uncle Todd, she picked out a nice game because 'he likes to play games!' which I quickly told her that he also cheats:)

Nicole got a great apple, cinnamon candle which will probably not have a whole lot of smell when burned, but oh well!!

Carly received this lovely baby doll that is not creepy AT ALL!!

Daddy got a bag of animal crackers because 'he LOVES animal crackers!!' And for the record, he does...eats them every night!!

Here is my lovely gift which Molly had to inform me later why it took so long to pick out...because they had to smell EVERY smelly lotion/perfume in the entire store to pick out the PERFECT smell for me...all 3 aisles of smelly stuff!! I probably owe Molly big for this, but I ended up with some sweet cherry smelling lotion that I love soooo much:)

My mom got a lovely plastic, Christmas goblet...not really sure why...she doesn't even drink wine!!

And my favorite gift was for Richard!! She did not really explain why she was getting this gift and who were we to ask? I was trying to let her make her decision and not persuade her at all. So, when he opened it on Christmas morning and Blayne ran to him and yelled, "Tickle time!!", we all figured it out. He is constantly playing 'tickle time' with the girls...he will look at my mom and ask her what time it is and the girls immediately run to him and yell, "Tickle time!!". This is their thing and I just loved that Blayne put it all together and got him this fantastic, green, plastic watch so that he will always know what time it is!! LOVE HER!!!

Blayne's school winter party!!

Blayne and I spent last night preparing for today's winter party by baking cookies (I decorated them after she went to bed!!) for her school friends and a few teachers. My mom and I both went to her party and I think the kids had great time!! They had four 'stations'...the cooking station where they made donut snowmen, the craft station where they made ornaments with their pictures, and 2 games stations playing a snowball game and musical chairs. Once the party started winding down, we passed out cookies to each of her friends. Then, we let Blayne decide who would receive the rest of the cookies. We started with the principal, assistant principal, secretary and nurse. After dropping those off at the office, we headed to the librarian, the music teacher (there are 2, but only one was there and it wasn't her favorite one!!), and the art teacher (once again, there are 2, but only one was there and it wasn't her favorite one!!). I should have made a few more cookies, so she could have included a few more people. Oh well, I think it was good enough to have made 30 of them!! Here are a few pics...

The cookie making process:





Blayne enjoying her donut snowman:


I would have taken more pics of the party, but my camera broke after taking 3 pictures!! It is now fixed and all is well...thank goodness!!

Fairy first visit

UPDATE again: When Blayne got home from school, she asked about the letter from the tooth fairy!! Apparently it bothered her a little bit. She added a note back to the tooth fairy and put it back under her pillow the next night. She was relieved that the tooth fairy took her letter and left her a silver dollar!! Here is a picture of her letter to the fairy:



UPDATE: Apparently, the tooth fairy was not too amused by the way that Blayne lost her tooth and wrote her a letter. Blayne came to our room early this morning with the letter and money in hand. She asked me to turn on the light and began reading, "Dear, Blayne I heard you were not very nice..." That is as far as she got, when she promptly crumpled up the letter and threw it across the room!! Guess she was not interested in what the tooth fairy had to say!!

In true Blayne form, she lost her first tooth in a fit of drama tonight...on Carly's 5th birthday!! We celebrated Carly's birthday tonight with our family at Chili's. Everyone was having a great time until the end of our meal. I had asked Blayne several times to stop kicking Grammy's feet under the table and to stop sliding under the table. She was behaving HORRIBLY! I don't think I have had a meal that bad in months!! She was not holding her fork correctly and waved it in Nicole's face several times. i was repeatedly asking her to stop until I had had enough!! Finally, I told her that was it...if she didn't stop, she would not get any dessert. I continued to have to ask her to stop several times, so off to the bathroom we went!! We don't have to go to the bathroom often, but tonight was definitely a bathroom visit kind of night. She continued to mock me, hit at me and even try to bite me in the bathroom. I took her outside the bathroom and sat her in a chair for time out. She sat for a few minutes (probably NOT long enough!!) before heading back to the table when I informed her that she had indeed lost dessert. We had already ordered both of the girls a brownie fudge sundae, but Blayne was not going to be eating hers (I totally scored a brownie fudge sundae!). She was not real excited about this news and turned to bite my shirt again. I sat her in my lap and ate a few bites of the sundae...it was pretty good, too bad she didn't get any!! She continued to fight me and then went over Nicole to try to get some of Carly's dessert. I had had enough when she spit at me across the table. I was mortified...possibly the worst restaurant behavior EVER!! I don't know what her problem was, but she was not fun. I decided it was past time for us to go, so I told her to put her shoes on. She refused to put her shoes on, so I picked them up and drug her out of the restaurant by the arm. She resisted, tried to kick, tried to bite, and hit me as I drug her out...we were quite a site:) We made it to the car and I let go of her in order to open the car door. She then bolted around the backside of the car to get away from me. I met her on the front of the car and marched her back to the car. I got her in her seat and was ready to buckle her in when she bit (hard) on the seatbelt because she was mad!! Then, in the blink of a second she looks up at me all innocently and says, "I lost my tooth". Huh?? I don't believe her until I look in her mouth and sure enough, there is an empty space in the bottom of her teeth. Yep, she lost her first tooth in a fit of rage like no other and all of the sudden everything was forgotten!! She was so incredibly happy to have lost a tooth. I don't know if the tooth had been loose or not, but the one next to it is a little bit loose. I am assuming it would have been coming soon, but probably not quite this soon!! We couldn't find the tooth in the dark parking lot and really I didn't know which of her biting tantrums it had fallen out in...the bathroom, the car or the parking lot!!! When we got home, we got out the flashlight and there was a little white tooth laying on the floorboard of the car...it had fallen in between the two seats. She was sooooo excited!! She couldn't wait to go in a show Daddy and I couldn't wait to go in and tell Daddy how HORRIBLE my dinner was!!!

We had a little talk when we got home and called to apologize for ruining everybody's dinner. Needless to say, the tooth fairy will be making a visit to our house tonight:) I just hope there is not this much drama involved every time she loses a tooth because I don't think I can handle it!!!!

Here is what the tooth fairy brought!!

Kindergarten is hard!!

Whew!! We are I am worn out tonight!! I didn't blog about our 1st kindergarten family project...I have a picture on my phone, so I will get it here soon. Our 1st project was to dress up 'Buddy Bear' (he is the kindergarten mascot!). Our project went very smoothly. I took Blayne to the craft store, we picked out the supplies, came home and put him together. Our 'Buddy Bear' was dressed up in a pumpkin costume, stuffed and everything. So, our 2nd project came home last week. We were supposed to receive it on Tuesday or Wednesday, but Blayne went home sick on Tuesday and was out of school on Wednesday. Once I got questioned about my family project from another mom, I realized that we had not received it...that was on Thursday afternoon!! Needless to say, we did not receive our instructions until I asked the teacher about it while I was at school volunteering on Friday. And yeah...it was Halloween weekend...seriously?? Like we were going to have a bunch of spare time this weekend to do that. So, of course, the project was saved for tonight...yeah!!!! We were sent home with a turkey to cut out and disguise, so that he wouldn't be eaten for Thanksgiving dinner. I went to the craft store this morning in order to buy the supplies to disguise our lovely turkey. I also remembered on Halloween night (Caitlin was a 50's girl!!) that we had a paper sent home about Tuesday being the 50th day of school. The kindergartners were going to have a sock hop. Looking at Caitlin's cute little costume, I decided on that my sewing machine was still out and surely I could throw together a poodle skirt, right?? Why not?? So, I picked up a few supplies for that too!! After all of the errands I had to do during school (without Blayne), I had absolutely no time to start either project. So guess what?? I would just start the skirt at 4, stop to cook and eat dinner and finish everything else after dinner...no problem!! What was I thinking?? After dinner, I sent Chris in to help Blayne with her project while I finished her skirt. That went over well!! It was getting late and after a few meltdowns, I decided to take action!! I finished up the skirt and finished the turkey...did I mention that I fed us and the in laws tonight...oh, and read to Blayne before bed!! And now I am here to blog about it...crazy day!! Well, let us know what you think of OUR MY projects!!!

Happy Halloween 2009

Can we just always have Halloween on a Saturday?? That would be great, huh? It was so nice this year to be able to stay out late, let the kids eat candy, and enjoy some fun adult treats too(and the extra hour was a bonus!!)!! Just like all holidays with our family, we have a tradition, but this year was changed up a little bit. I normally host a kids party at our house before we head out and take the kids trick or treating around our neighborhood, but I decided not to have it this year and we didn't even trick or treat in our neighborhood!! We headed over to a friend's neighborhood, where we all had dinner and let the kids run crazy...maybe a little too crazy?? Somehow, catastrophe struck before we were ready to hit the streets!! About 45 minutes before we were ready to leave, a few of our kids found a great hiding place...in the shed, on the side of the house, that also happens to have spilled gasoline in it!! Needless to say, our kids came in from their great game of hide and seek and filled the entire house with the smell of gasoline. Fun!! We were thrown a little bit off schedule by cleaning up gasoline, but soon we were off!!

Here is my little powerpuff girl, Buttercup, ready to fight crime!!


All of the fierce powerpuff girls!!


Sometimes they are not so fierce.


The whole group, ready to get the candy!!!


Hittin' the street!!!


After our stroll around the neighborhood, we rushed off to the Dailey's!! Chris has been a part of the 'crew' that puts on this famous Los Rios Haunted House for nearly 25 years!! A house that I went to trick or treat as a kid and didn't know any of the people involved are now like family to me. We love this part of our Halloween tradition!! It is so fun to see our kids grow up with it and not be phased by how scary it is!! Most kids their age are terrified of going up to the door to get candy, but our kids LOVE it and want to be a part of it!!

Blayne and Caitlin relieving Oma from candy duty!!



Mr. Dailey does such a great job of putting all of this together!! He spends weeks getting all of the stuff out of storage, placing everything just right and running all the electrical it takes to run this!! Kids come in carloads to see it!! By the neighbor's calculation, we had well over 150 kids this year!!




I hope everyone had as much fun on Halloween as we did!! And now, the Holidays are in full swing...

Kids say the darndest MOST EMBARRASSING things!!

Blayne has successfully embarrassed me twice this week!! First off, my 'friend' (which will remain anonymous and I am quite sure she won't read this, but Hi!! if you do!!) came by our house to pick up her child whom I had been watching. We were out on the driveway and Blayne looks at her and says, "I think your getting fat!!!" Ummm...how do you recover from that?? I promptly told Blayne that you don't say things like that because it is not nice!! We had a little discussion later to reinforce that telling someone that they are getting fat is not appropriate!!! For some reason, I thought that we had an understanding. Apparently not...because two days later we were at another 'friend's' (a different anonymous friend) house before walking to school in the morning. We were standing on the front porch looking into the house and Blayne says, "Your house is messy!!" She took me by surprise for a minute because I didn't really hear what she said. Once I knew that I heard it right, I told her that their house was no messier than ours!!! That is when she pointed to the laundry laying in the chair. I then told her that it was just laundry and the only reason our house doesn't look like that is because I fold laundry in my bedroom so that I HAVE to put it away in order to go to bed!!! Ugggghhhh...two VERY embarrassing moments all in the same week!! Luckily, both times were with friends that *know* kids and neither took it personal!!

It's hard being a kindergartner parent

I know it has been a LONG time since I have posted, but what can I say?? We have been busy!! The new schedule has thrown me off a little bit!! I am used to staying up until 11:30 or 12 every night, but when getting up at 6:30, it is not so easy to stay up so late. Obviously, this has cut into my blog time. This post is probably going to be all over the place!! My mom was scheduled to go home on the 10th of September until we found out that the very next day would be grandparents day!! She was going to miss it by about 14 hours!! Of course, this meant that a ticket change was in order...along with the $200+ fee!! The Friday morning of Grandparents Day ended up being a horrible day of pouring rain that continued the ENTIRE week that my mom had extended her trip!! We were soaking wet by the time we arrived at the school, but it was all so worth it. Here are a few pictures of the day..

Grammy and Blayne

Grandma, Grandpa and Blayne

Blayne working on the picture of what she likes to do with her grandparents...yeah, umm, she drew Target and said that she likes shopping...that's my kid!!!


This is Blayne introducing her grandparents to her class (Grammy won her a water bottle for traveling the furthest distance!!)


Grammy and I had an extra week and we definitely needed it!! We had a couple of unfinished projects that we completed during all of the rain!! Blayne has 'quiet time' for the first several weeks of school and they have to bring a towel to lay on...more for boundary issues than anything else!! We thought that Blayne needed a cute, personalized towel to lay on, so we decided to make one. And then, of course, Carly will be in kindergarten in a year, so she needed one too!!!




Grammy finally had to go home and we got back to life as normal...well, kinda!! Jen and I have been working on starting our own party planning/cake business and got the first of our joint effort 'jobs' (you know, the kind you get paid for!!). We have collaborated before, but never really getting paid. One of our friends requested a cake to feed 30 people in addition to 30 cupcakes for her sons Star Wars birthday. Jen and I work really well together and I think our finished product turned out great!! Of course, you can decide for yourself....




It is hard to believe that we are ending the 6th week of school. We have our first parent/teacher conference scheduled in 2 weeks which will also be Chris' first day of his new job. We have a busy 2 weeks ahead of us and I hope to keep better updated!! I am going to start my weekend early with a lunch date with one of my favorite people...SALLY!! So excited to see her and her precious baby!! Then we have this year's school fundraiser...a school carnival!!