Pioneer Woman & Shopping

Elizabeth loves the Pioneer Woman.  Grant loves Charlie, the basset hound, or "Charlie Dog" as he is referred to as in our house.  New episodes come on Saturday mornings and it not uncommon for the entire family to cuddle up on the couch to watch.  This morning Elizabeth slipped into bed with me at about 6:30.  "Mommy can we watch Pioneer Woman? I love that show.  I also love vanilla.  It smells sooooo good!"  Soon Grant woke up and joined us.   We had milk and juice in bed and watched a double feature.  What a perfect morning.

Last year the kids loved to play a game called "Tree Farm."  I told Elizabeth the story of when my brother and I were little and my mom took us to a tree farm and they had a little gift shop and we each got to pick an ornament.  I chose an angel.  I am actually surprised it is still in one piece!  Last year we had a few broken ornaments due to the "Tree Farm" game, when we pretend shop for ornaments off of our tree.  This year we put our "Barbie Tree" upstairs in the hallway.  I had a dozen or so odd ball ornaments that we also hung with the Barbie keepsakes.  Today Elizabeth asked to play Tree Farm and we used the upstairs tree.  (I think the Barbie ornaments are pretty durable!)  Our conversation went like this:

Me: Oh is anyone working here today I was hoping to purchase an ornament for my daughter?
E: Hello! What can I help you with?
Me: I am looking for a shiny, sparkly ornament for my daughter.  Do you have anything like that?
E: Oh yes! We have this one, or this one, or this one
Me: Perfect, I will take this one
(She has a colored pencil and notepad in hand)
E: I will just use my pencil to take the ornament off the tree for you
(She struggles to remove the ornament using only her pencil)
E: Can you help me?
Me: Sure
E: That will be $1
(she jots something in her notepad)
Me: Here you go
E: Thank you here is your change
Me: Do you happen to have a box?
E: Sorry, I don't
Me: That's OK
E: Thank you for shopping.  Have a great day.  I hope your daughter likes it.  Come back soon!

I am just grinning ear to ear over this entire exchange.  Then I think to myself...wow we must shop a lot, because she kind of nailed this shopping scenario!

Thanksgiving and more...

Since my brother was in town the week before thanksgiving we celebrated with him and my grandparents on Sunday.  I love thanksgiving food and I loved my mom's new stuffing recipe!  We had thanksgiving dinner with Brandon's family at his grandparent's house on Thanksgiving day.  Another wonderful meal!

Elizabeth has been begging for me to put her in swim lessons again and I keep delaying it.  She already has dance class on a school day and swim lessons will have to be on a school day and she has a hard time making it through these days happy.  I think I have her convinced that we will start at the beginning of the year.

She has her pre-school Xmas program next week and the Sunday School program is in two weeks.  So stay tuned for those updates!

Grant's speech is still progressing.  He is using a lot of words.  Last week I could understand almost everything he said.  This week I am struggling to understand a lot of what he is saying and I am hoping that is because he is using so many new words!  We are very pleased that he is talking now and using more words, I just wish that they were more accurate and understandable, but the therapist reminds me to be happy with where we are.  We still continue to focus on his connective speech (putting words together).

I did get brave this week and let Grant wear big boy underwear to Wal-Mart.  We were ready to check out and I forgot something and I was standing in the card aisle he says, "pee" - as in he already did.  I do have to say that I am loving the boys track pants that have a sweat pant type inner lining - it absorbed the pee, but didn't soak through to the outside.  He will still try to hide in another room to do his #2 business but if we recognize that he has sneaked off and take him to the bathroom he usually poops for us.  If we can just get him to recognize the "i have to pee" sensation in place of "i just peed!" we will be all set!  All in time ;)

We also went to the Festival of Lights Parade.  The kids loved it.  I wish I would have taken a picture of Grant waving to Santa.  The look on his face was priceless...like oh that is Santa! His eyes were fixated on him!

Brandon also took an extra day off work and told him that it would make the kids day to take them to McDonalds for breakfast.  Elizabeth was kind enough to help Grant to the top of the play structure.  Guess who didn't want her to help him down? Guess who had to go and get him? Guess who took lots of pictures...laughing all the way?!

Ice Skating

I thought it would be great fun for Uncle David and Elizabeth to have some special bonding time and go ice skating.  Luckily, my brother thought it might be a good idea if I went along too.  Thank goodness I did!  Wow! For whatever reason I thought this would be fairly easy for her...not so much.  David spent most of the time hunched over with her in between his legs.  Her legs were like wet noodles, she just couldn't get her footing.  At one point she was able to just stand and glide when we were both holding her hand.  As we were taking the skates off my brother says, "How long we were here for?"  The answer: 45 minutes and that included getting checked in, and getting the skates on and off!  Ok, so maybe 4 years old is early to ice skate, but we tried!  We will give it a few more years!

EB relaxing and letting Uncle David do the back breaking work!

Caterpillar Visitors Center

Uncle David (my brother) was in town for Thanksgiving and we went together to check out the new Caterpillar Visitor Center.  Grant didn't make it through the movie, which is held in the bed of a 797, but he had plenty of fun climbing on all of the equipment!

Pops checking out the Cat race car

The kids always looked for the seat belts first!

Sitting in the tire of the 797 - the tires are 13' tall

Grant's Music Class

I decided this summer when Elizabeth started preschool in the fall that Grant and mommy needed an activity to do together.  I had taken Elizabeth to Music Together classes when she was little and she always seemed to enjoy them.  I guess that was my first mistake...assuming that because one liked it, surely the other one would!  It is a ten week class, 45 minutes long, once a week.  The first class went great.  He sat on my lap and hardly moved, a real angel.  Second class he was much more comfortable and began moving around a bit, but I was still able to manage it.  There is a no running policy during class.  Third class...he knocked a kid over (by accident, but he was running) as I go to collect Grant, I in turn, knock a kid over.  The Paulis took out two kids in 30 seconds, my cheeks were on fire.  I dreaded class 4 and 5.  He was sick for #6.  Number 7 I bribed him with food and the promise to look at the river for boats after class.  This class went pretty well.  Class 8, he was wonderful.  It became time to sign up for the next session....tempted, yes, I think he was maybe starting to enjoy it....but looking back at the beginning classes...no not signing up for the next session.  Class 9....he was wonderful...clapping rhythms, attempting to sing.  Class 10...so good!  We were sorry to say good-bye, but we will be looking for a different activity that is a bit more physical.

Horrible double chin shot, but you can see he is using the rhythm sticks

Grant and the egg shakers

Mary Poppins

We had a girls afternoon with Mimi at the matinee of Mary Poppins.  It was a fantastic show, although pretty different from the movie.  Elizabeth immediately heard the orchestra but didn't understand where it was coming from.  Mimi said she would take her up front to see the pit.  Elizabeth refused, thinking she was going to take her onto the stage!  We finally convinced her it was OK.  She had lots of questions during the performance.  I finally handed her a snack to keep her mouth busy.  She promptly took one bite and handed it back to me saying that she was not hungry.  The line of questioning continued!  At intermission I told her now was the time to ask any questions because it was important to stay quiet during the performance.  I also told her if her question was "what happens next?" to not ask, because I didn't know!  All in all she did really well.  There was a six and a half foot tall gentlemen in front of us, so there was a little seat hopping going on so that she could see better.  Fun day!

Halloween 2012

The first Halloween event this year was earlier in October at the zoo, Howl-zoo-ween.  It was a cold, rainy night, but it was a member only night so we wanted to go to avoid all of the lines.   We waltzed through in about 45 minutes...it was perfect!

Elizabeth had a Halloween party at school.  She wanted to go as Minnie Mouse, which was last year's costume, but since it still fit, I figured why not!

She also got to dress up for dance class.

I decided to carve a pumpkin with the kids.  Wow, that is hard work.  I will spare you the picture of the finished product (a typical jack-o-lattern face).  The kids just had fun cleaning the guts out.

Of course Halloween was on the chilly side.  We took our little cowboy and cowgirl trick or treating with the neighbors.  Grant was so much fun to watch.  He was running from door to door.  It is hard to believe that it was just a year ago that he was just taking his first steps.  The kids lasted about an hour and they were done.
(pics from the camera to come soon!)