Packing Day!

So today I slept in until 9:00 AM. 9:00 AM!!! My daughter came in and tried to tell me she was awake at 6:00 and I told her there was no way and to climb into bed with me. Then my son came in around 7:30, and then we all slept until 9:00.

We got the best news ever today...I took my kids to the doctor this morning to follow up on my daughter's ear infection and to make sure that my son was still OK, and I asked the nurse to measure my daughter to see how tall she was and guess what??? She's exactly 40 inches!!! So of course once she puts shoes on she'll be a little over that. That means she can ride a ton more rides at Disney World!!!

Now it's time to pack up! I can't wait until tomorrow...in 24 hours we'll be boarding our plane!

A Moment of Thanks....

I would like to tell everyone about this awesomely fantastic blogger that I have met and gotten to know over the last couple months, but even better over the last week. I’m sure a bunch of you know who she is, but to me, she is very special. She is ChrisB from Ms Cellania, and she helped me with my Christmas shopping!

I’m sure you all remember my post about two weeks ago talking about how hard it was to find stuff for my son. She wrote a comment about getting a bunch of little Thomas stuff and we e-mailed back and forth about how there is hardly any little Thomas stuff around here, and any neat stuff I have to get off of e-bay. So you know what she does??? She ships me this stuff:

I have never seen such adorable stuff! The pajamas are good quality…not the junk I end up buying at Wal-Mart or Target, and those slipper socks are perfect for the cold mornings when we take him to the sitter’s! And I’ve never seen books like that…they are so neat and little enough for him to hold and read. And that water bottle will be his new favorite juice cup, I know it!

And you know what she wanted in return??? Nothing for her. Nope! She wants a donation made to a children’s charity. I wanted to do that and pay her for everything, but she said that the exchange rate is horrible and I would end up paying way too much, so all she wants is for me to donate to a children’s charity. This is what Christmas is all about…people like her, hearts like hers.

And I know so many of you out there are just like her, and that makes me feel so good knowing that there are still so many great people in this world that don’t think twice about going out of their way for someone. So thank you to all of you, and thank you so much ChrisB!!!!

Randomness Again :)

Random Wednesday (I say that like it’s a weekly occurrence or something)…

-One of the Christmas gifts I bought my daughter arrived and it appeared to have already been returned once (the tape on the box was already cut through) and her eyes didn’t work right. So I had to ship it back to them yesterday with a not very nice note telling them how frustrating and time consuming it is to send packages back.

-I’m really, really super tired right now…I didn’t get to bed until about 11:30 last night and I had to be up at 5:45 this morning…that is not enough sleep for me, but unfortunately, it’s the trend lately.

-Only 2 more days of work including today!!!

-We leave for Disney in 3 more days!!

-I have not packed a single thing

-I have not even made a list yet of what I need to pack – I plan on working on that today while I’m doing real work.

-My parents keep insisting that my dad is going to get bored down in Disney…how on earth would that happen? I can’t imagine being bored down there!

-Apparently, we never cashed an expense check of hubby’s from back in January, so they reissued him another check…that was a nice little surprise and will come in handy at Disney :)

-I’m sad to say that Christmas cards will not go out before we leave :( This is bad because we never sent out “we moved” cards, so I was going to use the Christmas cards to do this…and our mail is done being forwarded I believe, so I'm guessing we're not going to get very many Christmas cards.

-If anyone wants to exchange Christmas cards, e-mail me your address at dstickel at mihomes dot com, I’d be happy to send you one!

I think that’s all for now…time to get to work (or take a nap)!

Counting Down...

3 more days of work people….3 more days! And that’s including today!!! Friday will be a packing day and take my kids to the doctor day to make sure all ear infections are history!

I’m trying to think of everything I’ll need to take…so far it looks like the weather is going to be in the low 80’s and high 70’s…YIPPPEEE! And the plane ride will be nice because I don’t have to pack any diapers!!! Now hopefully I can hold him off from having to go to the bathroom until the seatbelt signs are turned off :)

I’ll be doing some live blogging as well (I know you’re all super-duper excited about that). So hopefully each day there will be a nice little recap, maybe with some pictures, about how the trip is going.

Our Disney agent is coming over tonight to go over some last minute things (like how to get the best seats for the HSM2 Pep Rally, etc.) and I can’t wait! I will want to watch a special about Disney World that I DVRd (what’s the proper way for saying DVR is the past tense?) a while ago.

OK, now I guess it’s back to work…now that I am a manager, I have to make sure that I leave my team with enough work to do over the next week…I never realized how hard that is!

Thanksgiving Recap

Wow, what a fantastically long holiday break! It was so much fun and of course it went by way too quickly!

Wednesday was shopping day for my mom and the kids and I. We started out at Hobby Lobby which was a mistake, because we were in there for about 2 hours! I got some neat Christmas decorations and some wrapping paper and things like that. Then we went to lunch and to one of the grocery stores. The kids loved this place because it had little shopping carts that they could push around! Then we went home and the kids went down for a nap and when they got up, we went to the other grocery store. This one was also good because they have the carts that have TVs in them…my daughter watched Bob the Builder the whole time and never said a word! The other nice thing about this day was how warm it was…we wore short-sleeves the whole day! This is in contrast to the fact that it was about 35 degrees the next day!

Wednesday night we took my daughter to see Enchanted. It was such a dumb movie, but she seemed to like it (except it was kind of scary in parts) and they did a fairly decent job of trying to entertain the adults. There were actually quite a few couples in the theater which surprised me.

On Thanksgiving we got up and put the parade on and started cooking! I didn’t sit down until around 4:00 when we ate! But I had so much fun! My sisters and mom and I were there in the kitchen the whole day working and talking…it’s been a long time since we’ve had that much fun together. After dinner we just laid around. We checked out the ads to see what stores we wanted to hit the next day and then went to bed.

Friday my sisters and I headed out around 8:30 and went to a couple places. I didn’t buy a single gift…but I did buy myself stuff :) It was a very nice girl day (we had my daughter with us). We actually ended at Hobby Lobby again and my daughter fell asleep in the cart. The day ended with dancing at home, pizza and a cheesy Hallmark movie.

Saturday my sister had to head back to Michigan, which sucked, but at least she’ll be back at Christmas!! We headed down to hubby’s parents’ house for Thanksgiving with them. There was a home football game and we went to the second half. This proves how much I love hubby because it was freaking cold and I hate football and cold weather! After the game we all went to dinner and had a nice time.

Yesterday we just laid around all day. Hubby and I cleaned out some closets in preparation for bringing out the Christmas stuff. It was really nice and it was a great end to a fantastic weekend! It was super hard getting up to come in to work today!

Here are some pictures from the weekend:

My sister and my daughter making the famous Thanksgiving noodles

My daughter and hubby putting together the gingerbread house

My son and daughter hugging at the end of one of their dances

And you know what I’m thinking about now??? Only 5 more days until we leave for Disney!!!!

It's Turkey Day It's Turkey Day!

Let the Thanksgiving celebrations begin! When we were little we used to sing "It's turkey day it's turkey day" over and over again.

At work today we are having our Thanksgiving luncheon. We get a turkey from the Honeybaked store and then each of us brought something else in (I brought cheesy corn pudding – I’ve never made it before…we’ll have to see how it tastes :) ). And today is my last day at work until Monday!!! Yipppeeee!

Tomorrow my mom and I will head to the grocery store and buy everything we need. We’ll also start cooking some of the stuff that needs cooked. I’m really looking forward to sleeping in a little and just relaxing!

On Thursday we’ll wake up and have homemade sticky buns (they are the best!) and watch the Macy’s parade. I’m sure hubby will bring home the projector so we’ll get to watch the big Macy’s parade on the wall! Then my mom and sisters and I will start cooking and just start enjoying the day. Hubby will be frying the turkey so I don’t have to worry about that part!

Friday we’ll head to the stores…but I’m not sure how early :) I need to look around and see what the deals will be to see if it’s worth it.

So what are all of you doing? Any special work parties? Any special Thanksgiving traditions?

Not A Good Start To The Weekend!

I came home from work Friday and my daughter was sitting on the couch crying because her ear hurt. She’s had a cold for about 2 weeks now, and it made sense that she would probably have an ear infection. And we’ve been lucky…the only other ear infection she’s had was when she was 2 months old.

So we loaded the kids up (with some snacks because we hadn’t eaten dinner yet) and headed over to Urgent Care. We waited in the waiting room for a while and I felt so helpless as my daughter was in so much pain.

While we were waiting, a little boy ran up to my son and his mom walked over and picked him up and informed us that her son might have pink eye. So why the heck did you let him come anywhere near my son??? And she was letting him play with all the toys, so my poor son couldn’t play with them…and he didn’t understand why, which made me even sadder.

They finally call us back and we have a terrific nurse. She does well with both the kids, not just my daughter. Then the doctor comes in and she was even better! She gave my daughter some Motrin with a big syringe and then showed my daughter how she could play with it in the bathtub…she let her squirt the walls with some water! Then my son wanted one so she ran out and got him the same things so that he could play in the bathtub too!

The Motrin kicked in and we were able to go get some dinner. Saturday she got bad again, but after we gave her some more Motrin she was fine. The sucky part is that the antibiotic tastes horrible, so she dreads having to take that every day.

At least this should be over before we leave for Disney!!!

Equality....

I’m having a really hard time with the “Santa” thing right now. I have bought my daughter a ton of stuff for Christmas and have a ton more ideas in my head on what I can still get her, but I’ve got hardly anything for my son. And I’m having an even harder time thinking of things for him. He’s really into 2 things: The Cars movie and all its related memorabilia, and Thomas. So hubby and I have decided we will get him a train table, and a couple Cars…but then we’re stuck. I told my family to get him more trains and tracks, so I think he’s going to get a ton of that stuff.

I want the number of presents to be even, or at least semi-close. The lucky thing for me is that he doesn’t comprehend price or anything, so the other night when I gave my daughter her new Baby Alive doll (out of guilt because I actually told her she could give her a bath and now she doesn’t work anymore), we knew we had to give my son something…so we gave him a Cars car. So my daughter gets a $50 item and my son gets the $3 item. And he had no idea…that car was the best thing in the world.

So I have to figure out more things to get him. I think I’m going to search ebay for maybe some discontinued Thomas stuff. He’s 2, and I don’t even know how he’ll be at Christmas…I know last year we were still opening his presents 4 days after Christmas! But I want to be prepared just in case he wants to open as many as Sissy does.

Randomness….

1.) We have decided to fly to Disney! Yipeeee! No more 16 hour drive! Although I was kind of looking forward to it (time to actually read a book), the airfare went down and we’d only save about $190 if we drove, and that just doesn’t justify an extra 12 hours of travel time.

2.) I get to have dinner with some girls from my moms’ group tonight…at this place. I really want some friend ice cream. Now.

3.) When hubby drops the kids off in the morning, they stay asleep and he’s in and out of the sitter’s house. When I take them, my daughter figures it out and walks into my bathroom at 6:00 in the morning and wants to get dressed and ready for the day (normally the sitter does all this as they are supposed to be asleep! Then they fall asleep in the car, but when I take them in they wake up. I know I’m gentle…I just can’t figure it out! Luckily today though there were no crying fits and they laid on the couch and went back to sleep fairly easily.

4.) I have a gift certificate at a local spa that I have to use by the middle of December. I was looking at my dates and couldn’t figure out when I was going to use it, and then I realized I’m taking my daughter over to a friend’s on Saturday (after we get our hair done together) and I made an appointment for a massage while she’s there! I’m so excited! 2 massages within a month of each other!

5.) Only 2 more days with my boss…her last day is tomorrow. To say I’m freaking out a little is an understatement, but I have no choice and right now I just want to move forward with everything!

6.) I’m seriously counting down the minutes until next week when I only have to work 3 days…I haven’t had a day off in a while and it’s really wearing on me!


That’s all I got…I hope all of your weeks are going faster than mine is!

A Gift For Jill.....

I have a guest writer for today...Doug, the husband of Jill of Who Could Ask For Anything More. She is turning the big 40 today and he had the fantastic idea that he could post something on every blog she reads so that when she came to visit us, she would see how much she is loved and how special she is! OK everyone, all at once: "Awwwwww"

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY JILL!!!!

Birthday’s can be difficult. Milestone birthday’s can be devastating. To some more so than others, but to most people…they really seem to matter, to an extent, anyway. (How’s that for covering both sides of the fence?)

That is most people, except my wife Jill @ Who Could Ask for Anything More. Today is her 40th birthday and my co-conspirators I call BFOJ’s (Blogging Friends of Jill’s) have allowed me the distinct honor of being a guest columnist.

My hope is that wherever my wife goes within her circle of BFOJ’s today, she will see this message and know how much she means to me, not to mention how much the BFOJ’s think of her for letting a grizzled hack like me hijack their fantastic and very personal blogs.

Rather than do the traditional acronym exercise (J = Jazzy!) or the “40 Things I Love About My Wife” entry, I thought I would share the four most wonderful things about Jill -- the things that make me love her more every day.

She loves my older kids – Not everyone who marries into a new family will connect with the entire crew, but Jill never missed a beat. With my older kids, she accepted them and loved them – at first simply because they were my kids – and now because of who they are. She treats them with kindness, respect, gives them guidance on chores and other responsibilities, but is very respectful of their mom and never tries to “mother” them. She educated herself about Bay’s food allergies and is very cognizant of his limitations when planning and preparing meals. Rarely a day goes by that she doesn’t make a special version of our family meal just for him. Many times Jill has invited Kendra to come along to the salon to get their nails done. At 11 years of age, Kendra has always gravitating to older girls and more mature activities and this is a special way for them to spend time together.

She loves my parents - I can’t say I was ever really “close” to my folks in the sense that I sought them out for advice about life. So I wasn’t sure how that dynamic would play into my relationship with Jill. She has such a kind heart for that generation and quickly threw her arms around my folks and loved them unconditionally. Since we first met, my Mom has passed away and my Dad has endured a mountain of health issues. Through it all, Jill has been a steady, loving partner. In fact, on the occasions when my Dad visits, we have to make some alterations to the house to accommodate him, his wheelchair, his walker and his personal needs. Jill not only goes with the flow of the décor disruption, but lovingly plans meals that my soon-to-be 82-year-old father doesn’t get as often as he would like. It’s amazing how a simple plate of fried eggs and bacon can light up a proud man. My favorite time of our visits is in the evenings. Jill typically beats me home from work and when Dad is in town, they have usually already cracked open a new bottle of wine. Dad isn’t afraid to ask for service and Jill takes great pleasure in keeping his glass full. It is a precious time.

Her patience – Full disclosure: patience is not my strong suit. In fact, it is probably my greatest weakness and barrier to volumes of peace and happiness. That said, I find myself much more patient in the last four years in so many areas of my life (hmm…coincidence?). If you look up the word PATIENCE in the dictionary, you see a picture of Jill. Despite the chaotic nature of our house, I have rarely seen her react with desperation. In fact, I just see her continuing to raise the bar. As my patience has improved, she get even MORE patience. Her thoughtfulness and patience with Adam is uncanny…not that all mothers’ don’t have that nurturing gene…but even after a solid 10 minutes of whining about something that I find unintelligible…Jill merely says (for the umpteenth time)…”Adam, use words to tell Mom what you want.” She is amazing.

She makes our house a home – Imagine buying your first home together…and it’s already 27 years old. Granted it was in good structural shape, but the majority of the décor was stuck in the 70’s. Over the past two years, Jill has developed a beautiful vision of how our house should look…how it should become a home. We started with dark wood throughout and some of the most exciting beige paint you could imagine. We’ve progressed to vibrant colors, amazing window treatments and bright open spaces. The original kitchen was hideous, but is now a show place. The powder room was engulfed in mind-altering striped wallpaper but now looks like a museum exhibit. She goes bits and pieces forward as time and budget allows and every step of the way she is filling the gaps of her master plan. We’ve both said that this home is the first, last and only one we will ever buy and we joke that our next stop is either the Retirement Home or the Funeral Home. We want a home in which we can build family traditions and memories and one that the kids will want to bring THEIR kids to. We want to grow old right here. Together.

A Great Saturday!

Saturday I went to an all-day scrap to benefit March of Dimes. My friends and I had such a great time! We left my house around 7:45 in the morning and made the hour drive north to where it was located. When we got there, we saw a nice room with a bunch of tables. I guess she was 10 tables short, but we actually thought the space was just fine. Then we ate some breakfast (all food was included in the cost) and started scrapping.

There were some different vendors there (including Creative Memories and the lady let me start a “tab” which was very dangerous!). So we would scrap, take a break and look at the different items for sale, and then go back to scrapping. There were page layout contests and door prize raffles every couple of hours. I won a box of cinnamon muffin mix from Tastefully Simple!

We had such a fun day and it seemed to fly by. I got 10 pages done which is absolutely unheard of for me…I usually take a long time (hence why I’m only up to when my daughter was 1 ½). We finally left around 7:15 and headed to dinner at a fantastic Dutch restaurant (think fried chicken, mashed potatoes and noodles!). Then we drove home and then I played with the kids for a while.

The best part about the weekend is that they told us about a 48 hour crop going on in January! We will be heading to the Longaberger Hotel Friday, January 25th and won’t come home until Sunday evening! We are so very, very excited!

Fun Monday - Mother May I

This week's Fun Monday is hosted by Hootin' Anni's and the assignment is to:

"- 30 GIANT STEPS - IN ANY direction. You may have to make a few turns and pivots so you won't run into any walls or such...don't want any injuries today! WARNING: Avoid any obstacles in the way- if there's a door...open it & continue, if there is a wall...pivot AROUND it. You may end up outdoors! Or perhaps if a small apartment....down the hallway....who knows?!! :::thinking::: "Oh gawd, if there's a pool at the end of your thirty steps, I sure as H E double L hope you can swim!!!!"After the 30 giant steps, Stop!TAKE A PHOTO AND/OR NOTE WHAT YOU'RE SEEING!!Then, take 15 baby steps back.After the 15 baby steps, Stop!TAKE A PHOTO AND/OR NOTE WHAT YOU'RE SEEINGLOOK in any direction -to your right, left, up [more than likely, not down ---that'd be your feet!!]. What you see is what we get!!Stop!It's all about your first glance after the giant/baby steps!!! [You will have two photos/stories for us- the 30 giant steps then, the 15 baby steps going back]Don't forget---ask "Mother may I"!!"

OK, I had a very busy weekend and kept meaning to do this but I forgot. And then this morning I was going to try to do it, but let’s face it…if you push the “snooze” button until the last possible second, leaving you only 40 minutes to shower, get dressed, put on make-up and do your hair before you have to leave, there’s no time for picture taking.
But then I remembered that I already have so pictures that would be pretty close to what I would see 30 steps away from my computer!!! Aren’t I lucky?

So here are my photos...they may not be as specific as looking at a particular thing, but at least you can see my house :)

Yes, these two kids are almost always in my bed, so even if I had done this assignment correctly, I probably still would have seen them here (minus the pacifier of course!) :) Above the adorable little munchkins, through the railing, is our "owner's retreat." This is the computer room and my scrapbooking room. It's pretty unorganized right now and a lot of times it's pretty messy, but it's nice to be able to leave my scrapbooking stuff out all the time!

30 steps away from the computer will lead you just outside our bedroom and looking out you can see our great room and eating area and a small little portion of our kitchen.

So there you have it! Phew, I felt like a high schooler that forgot to do my homework...good thing I was able to refresh all my skills and get by without having to tell the teacher I didn't have it!

Now go to Hootin' Anni's and see all the other participants!

Miscellaneous stuff:

1.) Last night I made a dinner that was sure to give us all heart attacks, but it was so very, very good. I wrapped bacon around chicken and cooked it on the stove, and then covered it in a homemade Alfredo sauce. I also made some puffed pastry as our bread (brushed it with garlic butter before and after baking it). My saving grace was the veggie mixture of broccoli, carrots, peas and water chestnuts. It was just so very good.

2.) Saturday is a big day for me…some friends and I are traveling about an hour away to an all day crop! We get to scrap for 10 hours straight! It’s really an awesome thing…it costs $30, and that includes the space, food and drinks all day and door prizes. The best part is that this is a crop to benefit the March of Dimes, so we’ll get a receipt for our “tax donation” at the door! I started printing pictures out last night and I’m getting more and more exited! The only thing I’m nervous about is condensing my supplies so that I can somewhat easily transport them (and have enough room in the car for 3 other ladies’ supplies).

3.) Tonight is my mom’s group. I’m excited to go and see the ladies at my table, but if it wasn’t for them, I don’t think I’d go…with the weather getting colder and the longer drive (it takes me about ½ hour to get there) and the fact that my daughter has gymnastics right before it, so I have to rush out of that to make it in time, it’s just not as appealing now.

That’s about it…we still haven’t filed our 10-Q – we hope to do it today (tomorrow’s the deadline), so work is still kind of crazy!

Stress!

The last couple of days have been very busy for me. Not just because it’s my busy time at work and we’re hopefully filing our 10-Q today, no, apparently I needed more stress in my life. We found out Monday that my boss is leaving our company next week. She is such a key person in this department, and as a team of 1, it’s left to me now until the controller figures out what she wants to do.

My position has been very difficult for me…in a good way. I’ve never done what I’m doing before, and in the almost 2 years that I’ve been doing what I’m doing I’ve learned a ton. But I have no where near the knowledge that my boss has (she’s about 8 years ahead of me age and school-wise). So there’s no way I would ever come close to feeling comfortable stepping into her shoes. But until they find a replacement, that’s what I have to do…and probably all through year-end and filing our 10-K (which is a huge, huge deal).

Our controller’s goal, as of now, is to promote me, put someone under me, and then still hire someone above me to do all of the high-high level stuff my current boss does. This is all just fine with me, but like I said, it probably won’t happen until February or March of next year. Which just sucks.

In happier news I had a Lia Sophia jewelry party last night and it turned out really well! I had a lot more orders than I thought I would and now I’m picking out the pieces that I want to get for myself. But it was still a long night last night and it will be nice to have a night with nothing to do tonight!

I’m trying to keep up with all of you…I just may not be commenting as much due to the added work stress :)

25 More Days!!!

25 Days from now we will be hitting the road for a 16+ hour trip to the greatest place on earth…DISNEY WORLD!!!!

It was kind of a last minute decision (actually, I thought deciding and book 2 months in advance was plenty of time, but not for Disney apparently!), but we thought with this being my daughter’s last year of not having to worry about school, we might as well go for it! We will be leaving on November 30th and coming back December 8th. My parents are also going with us which will be very cool.

I haven’t been there since 2000, so I’m anxious to get back there and to show my kids this wonderful place. We ordered the planning DVD from Disney and they loved watching that, and we’ve also pulled up a bunch of Disney videos on youtube and the kids are getting more and more excited! My daughter of course wants to see the princesses and my son wants to see the Cars characters and Mickey and Minnie.

I’ve had so much fun reading the recaps of recent visits to Disney (A Family Story, The Cagle Clan and Jason. For The Love Of God). Each entry just got me more and more excited!

A Unexpedly Fun Night!

Last night we had the opportunity to go to a very cool local Science museum called COSI. I really don’t like science or really care how things work, but even I think this place is amazing! What’s sad is that this place was my 8th grade class trip (as opposed to how most schools go to D.C.). But aside from that time, I’ve been here around 10 times…we brought my daughter here when she was a baby a couple times because they have a really cool toddler area where kids can run around, touch things and build things. It also has some really cool water tables for even the youngest of babies (I think my daughter was around 8 months when we first put her in the water table chairs).

Anyway, a local health care system was launching a new program and new commercials and the launch party was at COSI. My sister has been doing an internship at this local health care system, so she invited us to come over. We even got food in the deal!

The best surprise was that there was a Bob the Builder exhibit. My kids spent the entire last hour of the night here playing, and they wouldn’t have left had we not been kicked out because they were closing!

I honestly didn’t want to go last night…after my daughter’s gymnastics I was so worn out that I just wanted to take it easy back at home. But my sister seemed so excited that we were coming, and I didn’t want to let her down. Now I’m so glad that we went! And I’m not sure who had more fun…the kids or us :)

Oh, and a really cool thing happened with my daughter…there was a little girl that was trying to pick up and keep all of these flower things that my daughter was playing with. My daughter started to really get upset and tried to grab them all before she could get them. I told her to share, and she looked at me and said “why? That little girl isn’t!” I made a comment loud enough for the little girl (who appeared to be 4 or 5 as well) to hear (because of course her parents were no where around) about how we have to share and be nice to people (I in no way was directing it at the little girl, I was using it as a lesson for my daughter). I told my daughter that we are supposed to be examples of how to do things the right way.

A little later on we were in the “workshop” and my daughter was at the architect’s table drawing. That same little girl came up and sat next to her and started to draw. My daughter drew this moon and a door and told me they were from another world and they had lines on them and polka dots. I asked her what color they would be and she said “pink and purple.” The little girl then asked very politely if she could borrow one of the shape things and my daughter nicely handed it over. After a few minutes I looked over at the little girl and you know what I saw on her paper? A door with lines on it and polka dots! Later I told my daughter how flattering it was that this little girl had copied her. And that maybe she really just wanted to play with her, and that was why she was taking all the flowers earlier.

Here are some pictures from our fun night :)

Halloween 2007

Last night was so much fun! Hubby and I left work early so that we were home in plenty of time to get our food ready and the kids in their costumes and ready to go. I had so much fun doing my daughter’s hair and make-up – she was Elina from Fairytopia and her eye shadow was so cool! We did a rainbow of colors and then glitter around her eyes and on her lips. Then I put a butterfly on her cheek. She was so proud of how she looked!

We carried on our potluck tradition from our old neighborhood where everyone on the cul-de-sac brings out some food and we all sit there and talk and the kids can come up and get candy out of our bowls and the adults can help themselves to any food if they want. While it wasn’t quite the same because we really miss some of our old neighbors, it was still a lot of fun. Hubby had the fire pit out and all of the court neighbors came out to hang out. My mom and my sister and her boyfriend also came over for the evening, which was really nice.

I took the kids around our little neighborhood (about 15 houses) and then we came back, grabbed some food and headed over to the other section of our neighborhood that’s across the street. The kids did pretty well…my son walked so slow until I got smart and told him to be like Buzz, so he’d put his arms out like he was flying and say “to infinity and beyond!” I was also very impressed that he went the whole trick-or-treat time without going potty and without any accidents! He also pooped in the potty 4 times yesterday!!! I guess that dinner from the night before really kicked things into gear :)

The only thing that made me a little upset was that there were some adults that dressed up in really scary costumes and were walking around. My daughter gets scared very easily, and it was still really light out in the beginning and she saw some pretty scary costumes. I just didn’t think it was necessary for them to be just walking around when all the little kids were out. But she didn’t have any nightmares last night, so I guess she was OK.

Here are some pictures…it was hard getting them to pose, so there weren’t too many good ones. It was neat…our neighbor’s little boy was Woody and we didn’t even know that’s what he was going to dress up as, so “Buzz and Woody” were inseparable all night!

Here's a video of my son being Buzz Lightyear!


To Infinity and Beyond from Debbie on Vimeo.