Okee dokee. We all know that yesterday was a very special day for Lil' Miss. And I know you're all dying to know just what she did to celebrate that special day. Well, it started out a little rough. But we got over that rough spot and moved on to more celebratory activities. Nothing big, but exciting enough. First things first. She dressed herself that morning. Of course I said that today was her birthday and she should wear a party dress for the special occasion. Well she was gone like and shot and upstairs in her room. Did I dare follow her? No, I had another little person to manage so I threw caution to the wind. A short time later she came back downstairs twirling and showing off her birthday duds.

Please take note that she is wearing a pretty sundress (with a white t-shirt on underneath...something I would totally make her do since it is so cool out now), yellow tights, striped socks...and a skirt. Yeah, that's alot of bottom layers. But she wore them all day and well into the night and that was just that. Next came an afternoon trip to a very good friend's house to indulge in some tastee cupcakes. I didn't go all out on a cake for her this year. She will be having a birthday party with a couple of friends later on in the month and we're saving the special cake for that. Instead I made orange creamsicle cupcakes and we took them over to our friend's place to eat them. Of course after we ate cupcakes, it was time to dress up like a princess and dance....

 After the girls wore off all that sugar it was time to hit Chuck E Cheese's. I had never been to this place before, but Dad had taken Lil' Miss there a long time ago. I think I was working nights or something. Anyhow he took her and vowed to me when I got home that he would never take her there again. Just for the record...he suggested we take her there for her birthday. Sure! I don't mind, I've never been to the place. And Lil' Miss was instantly ecstatic that we were going there. Ok. Our good friend also brought her family and joined Lil' Miss on her birthday supper.

When Dad finally showed up at the restaurant, he came with a beautiful new tiara for the birthday girl to wear. Let's get this straight now...that's a FANCY NANCY tiara peoples! She wore it all night.

 Of course after you indulge in some cardboard pizza (the food was really bad. But kids don't care!) it was time to hit the games! Nothing like a spin on the marshmellow ride with your friend!

 And when you're done with the games, how about 'cuttin a rug' on the dance floor? Alot of time was spent on that dance floor....

 Some new moves were learned.....

 And alot of twirling was a'going on!

 Then when you're tired of burning up the dance floor, head 'er on back to the games! Nothing like riding the same ride or playing the same game over and over and over again!

 And to end the night....cake! To celebrate the turning of 3 years old! Can you believe it? I'm not sure I can. When 9 pm hit, the Mr.Mister was melting down (waaaaay past his bedtime) and Dad was in a coma from attempting to eat the bad food (yeah, it really was bad) so it was time to hit the trail home. Little did the Lil' Miss know, but there was still one last thing to do at home. Open PRESENTS!!!!

 I want to thank everyone who gave her a present. She carefully opened and analyzed every single gift. Big smiles for everything....and she even opened and looked at the cards! What kid opens the card before they rip open the present???? This one does! As you can see she got a noisy pink guitar (from Daddy), books, colouring books, stickers, a new outfit...a new lolly dolly.....

Pretty good haul if I do say so myself. And so ends that birthday for another year.

Halloween Par-Tay Day 3.

Holy smokes Halloween came and went and now it's over. Time to take down all decorations and move on to the next holiday....Lil' Miss's birthday! But let's not get too ahead of ourselves here. Time to show off some pumpkin action! We did 4 pumpkins this year. Simple pumpkins, but effective I would say. We did try a new technique. Painting. Although it wasn't that hard to do, it's still something that I haven't done on a pumpkin before. I'm a bit of a traditionalist. As much as I like new techniques, I always have one pumpkin carved in the traditional, old school pumpkin face. Let's let the pictures do the talking...shall we?????

 BOO!

 Traditional.

 Pumpkin face and a black kitty cat! Nifty, huh?

Ooooh, it's that nice witch again. Only she doesn't appear to be dressed in her costume!!
So last night we were ready to rock. Candy ready....

 I know you laugh at the large amount of candy here....but after last year I needed to be prepared!

 The nice witch ready to hit the streets to trick or treat. Ok mostly treat.

Heading down the block with a full bucket ALREADY! We really didn't end up going to far. We wanted to be back in time to see the fireworks at 8 pm. And we didn't get out the door until 630 pm. We were in such a flustery rush to get going that I made her race out the door without shoes on. Good grief. We were heading down the sidewalk and I got "Mommy, I don't have my shoes on!" Yeesh. So back through the throngs of trick or treaters to get into the house for shoes. Then we were set. We went around the block, emptied the bucket at home, then went down one more street. So 2 full buckets of candy later and that was enough. We were out for just over an hour and Lil' Miss wanted to help Dad give out candy anyhow. Our neighborhood really gets into the swing of Halloween. Lots of houses dressed up and even a couple of haunted houses with loud noises, strobe lights, fog machines, large scary monsters and tons of cobwebs! It was spectacular. No wonder kids come by the carloads to trick or treat this area! I don't think we got as many kids as last year, but my estimation is about 350 kids from about 545pm until 800pm. After the fireworks were over, we shut 'er down. Still have some candy left, but Dad was sweating giving out the candy and he was done. And the Lil' Moose (Mr.Mister) really needed to go to bed. He stayed home to help out Dad, but proceeded to really just try to escape out the front door every time it opened....which was constantly. So that was that. And now it's over for another year.

Ok, for those who read this blog and are interested in the scrapbooking and crafty stuff, I've created a new blog that will feature more of that kind of thing. I'm keeping this blog as the family event blog and I'm thinking this will still be the main blog. But for a couple of reasons, I'm going to try this 2 blog format for awhile. If it doesn't work, I'll go back to doing just one blog. Not much will change. I'll still blog irregularly about the kids and events in our life and try to keep you up to date on that kind of stuff. So if you want to have a peek at the new blog, head on over!

http://blueskiesandgreengrass.blogspot.com/

If this link doesn't work, plllllleeease let me know!

Ok, we're a little behind on the times for our halloweeny activities. Just been a fury of activity here and of course I just have been losing track of time.

We carved our pumpkins. No they are not done yet. I'll be back with another post showing the finished product. But here are some pics to whet your appetite!

If I recall correctly, last year Lil' Miss wasn't too enthused about helping with the pumpkins. She didn't really want to touch the pumpkin innards. Too slimy I guess. Anyhow, this year she couldn't wait to get her hands in there! I showed her how to do the first one and she emptied out the next 2. I carved them after she went to bed, but she helped paint one the next day. Photos of finished pumpkins to come!!!!

Are YOU ready for the days of HALLOWEEN!?!?!?

Just keep checking for what we've got in store for you!

Halloween Par-tay Day 2

Yes, this weekend is totally full of Halloweeny fun! Today, we hit 'Boo at the Zoo'. Yep, dressed Lil' Miss up in her costume once again and went on down to the Valley Zoo to check out what they had to offer. We were pleasantly surprised. First things first. Try the 'guess what is in the box, but don't look you only get to touch it' game. Gramma and Momma Bear tried them all, but we could only get Lil' Miss to try a few. She caught on right away that that isn't really all that fun to play.

But what she did catch onto was the treat stops. Placed all around the zoo were treat stations that kids could trick or treat from. One time I tried to get her to ask for the play doh treat instead of the candy treat. She didn't listen. "Mommy, I want the lollipop." Oh alright.

We toured around, watched some animals, saw a sealion / harbour seal presentation, got a a butterfly tattoo on her cheek, did a craft, PETTED NOT ONLY ONE SNAKE BUT THREE DIFFERENT SNAKES AND TOUCHED A GECKO!!!!!!! Yeah, so there!! I admit, the snakes were soft. It was kind of neat.

We did a bit of a scavenger hunt, saw Lucy the elephant while she was out on her walk and rolled down a leafy hill multiple times (now that is fun times people!). All in all, we crammed alot into our 2 hours of zoo time (we got there a little late in the day. I didn't realize the zoo now closes at 4pm. Must be onto winter hours). They also had Halloween decorations all through the zoo. That was kind of neat too! And staff dressed up in costumes. Good times. Lil' Miss started out wearing her costume, but by the end of the zoo day she was down to street clothes. Sometimes those outfits do nothing but get in the way. And really, how is one supposed to roll down a leafy in hill in pink hair and a frilly tutu?

Nothing like rolling in leaves in the fall time.

Halloween Party Day 1

Ok, now we're onto Halloween peoples. Today? The Scarecrow Festival. Now, this is totally aimed towards kids. And when you first walk into the festival, you might think....'Yeah, we'll be here an hour tops, then we'll get bored and mad that we paid 12 dollars to park for 1 hour of 'whatever' fun'. But then, if you're really into the spirit of having some fun, or watching your child/children have fun, you'll find you're there for 3-4 hours and the time will have flown by. Of course it also helps to have Gramma there with you to babysit the Mr.Mister so Lil' Miss can take full advantage of games, crafts, twirling and whirling in her costume....and of course hitting the bouncy castle circut.

Can I just say that she is absolutely the most adorable 'nice witch' ever? I mean, I could not stop smiling at her while we walked to the festival. And lots of other people smiled and commented on her costume. Not only that but she actually wore her costume almost the entire time! Wig, hat and scratchy cape! The hair kept bugging and tickling her face, the hat kept falling off, she couldn't see very well through the sunglasses (indoors in really muted lighting....because we were at a Halloween Festival!) and those sunglasses did come off once we were inside at the festival and the tutu ended up being quite wide...but she liked it and wore it. I think the shoes were giving her blisters and towards the end of the day we just took them off and let her run in sock feet. She still wore her costume like a trooper and without complaint. What a girl!

Just so you know, I spent all morning making that tutu and cape. Score one for Momma! And Gramma helped Lil' Miss find those glasses. Also score one for Gramma!

Now, let's not forget about the little guy. He hung out in the stoller the whole time (ok, Gramma felt sorry for him and took him out for a bit as well) and watched the passers-byers....dressed like a moose.

He was pretty cute in his costume too. Cute and squishy. Can I just say, without jinxing myself, that he was such a good baby today. He withstood pretty much everything that got thrown at him today. Strapped in the stroller, wacky lights and loud noises, being ignored (until Gramma felt sorry for him and they sat on a bench together while Lil' Miss took in some carnival games with me), starvation and dehydration (ok, we did bring a water cup for him that Gramma took advantage of and he learned about cheerios because we didn't leave until just after 5pm and that's seriously cutting into his dinner time), and really no opportunity for him to stretch his leggies....and a hot, two sizes too large costume. So he did pretty good, no real meltdowns, except for a bit at the end, and really, I couldn't blame him.

I took Lil' Miss around so she could try her hand at the carnival games. This year she could really participate and she totally cracked me up. She did good and waited patiently for her turn. Most of these games involve throwing objects at assorted targets and she was all over that. Besides, her dad has been teaching her to throw balls at home. What better time than to try out her throwing skills. Well, the young girls manning the booths pretty much needed to run for cover while Lil' Miss gave it all she had. Observe the action!

She put her whole body into those throws....and her pretty pink curly hair didn't even fall off! Now that is skillz! Anyhow, Scarecrow Festival was a success. And now this pooped mommy needs to hit the hay!

Check out Liz Karchner's blog, girls......

SNUBBBED!

'Nuf said.

Thanksgiving Weekend DAY 4

Day 4 wasn't so much a Thanksgiving day for us (although really, it was Thanksgiving day!!). It was all about a birthday party! Lil'Miss had herself a party to attend and of course she had no choice but to drag Mr.Mister along with her (oh bummer!)

So there's nothing like dressing up when you have a party to attend!

And of course, we brought the cake with us. As you can see it was a Dora the Explorer themed party.

And while we were there Mr.Mister practiced his furniture surfing, and even made it up one small step. Of course when he tried to go down that one small step, he did a face plant. But he learned from his mistake and just didn't do that again. He was more careful the second time!

And I really think Lil' Miss thought it was her birthday. She's very excited for her birthday. Less than a month away!

Thanksgiving DAY 3!

Ok, as one can see I'm a bit behind on the Thanksgiving weekend blogging. But that doesn't mean I'm going to deprive you of our really exciting life!!!! Instead of blogging yesterday I went in search of a new design to ring in Halloween. You like?

Anyhow, let's carry on with DAY 3! For excitement today we trucked on out to the Prairie Gardens pumpkin patch. After some delay (naps) and a bit of mis-navigation (me) we did make it. We were able to indulge in fall and pumpkin fun for a couple of hours. I would have liked to go through the corn maze, but we didn't have enough time.

Ok, so we did go through the small kids corn maze. It turned out to be such a beautiful day. We have been very lucky with our weather lately. We did have about a week of crummy skies and gloomy sem-rain, but after that the sun burst out and has been providing us with a spectacular fall. Knock on wood. I'm not complaining. I'm only hoping this can continue until after Halloween. That would sure be nice.

Before we left the pumpkin patch, Lil' Miss said she was going through the haunted house. I asked her, was she sure? And she stood there looking up at it and said yes. So Papa Bear and I took her through. We got about 3 steps in and got told...."Aaaahhh! this is too scary!!!!" And I told her, well, we can't go back, we'll just hurry through. She stopped dead in her tracks. There was no pushing, shoving or moving her. So I picked her up and whisked her through the rest of the way. Now she can't stop talking about how scary the haunted house was. Was this a mistake??????

This was about the extent of DAY 3. Now on the the last day!

Thanksgiving Weekend DAY 2

Yet another routine day around the household. The day outside today was BEAUTIFUL! Wow! Blue sky, warm sun, a bit windy and there was a chill in the air. But it is OCTOBER PEOPLE! So I'm not complaining. I could have days like this until Nov. 5. I would be a happy person. And on to our events of the day.

1.) We hit costco this morning. The kids and I packed up nice and early (ok, early for us. We were in the parking lot of costco by 945 this morning. Definately a feat when we all didn't roll out of bed until 0800.) and hit the trail. I would say this was one of the better decisions on my part. I only went because we ran out of dogfood and the puppies were starv-ing! So on the advice of Papa Bear, who attempted to go last night but had to abandoned his cart in the tv section because the line ups (or lack thereof, apparently it was chaos it was so busy ) were absolutely insane, I geared up for an early attack. I would say we missed the first wave of insanity. I parked yon monster truck out in the boondocks where I could completely take advantage of a pull-thru parking spot. And by the time we got out (no line ups! Yay!) people were lined up to take my parking stall. Face it, no one parks in la-la-land unless they really have to. So I would have to assume that costco became nutso after we left. But we did sacrifice Mr.Mister's nap to get 'er done. He fell asleep on the way home, but successfully transfer without waking to his bed. Hand-pump that feat! YEAH!

2.) We pulled out the Halloween decorations and took advantage of the nice weather to get our house looking a little more ghoulish. Ok, not ghoulish because our theme always seems to be spiders. But one year I will have some grave stones and scary fencing with ghosties floating away in our front yard. But for the mean time we will stick to non-scary stuff. I'm ok with that.

And of course I had a helper 'helping' me out. Good thing Gramma showed up to watch and take care of the little guy while all this commotion was going on.

My helper 'helped' me unpack the Halloween box. It was very exciting. Full of pumpkins and spiders and spiderwebs and sparkly lights. Oh and this fabulous witches hat. "I'm a witch and I'm SCAAAAAAAARY!" That's what we got told anyhow.

3.) We still had some time before dinner so we went out for a walk. Lil' Miss rode her bike and Gramma and I and Mr.Mister strolled along and enjoyed the beautiful day. Lil' Miss finally figured out that we were going the 'special way'. Yes, we headed to the Mac's store for a slurpee. She acted like she goes there all the time. In fact I do believe she told Gramma this. Now Gramma probably thinks I feed her sugar whenever I get the opportunity to. But I don't. Just for the record!

We took a longer way home and I ended up with a sleep walker whom I finally had to pick up and carry home. Gramma carried her bike.

4.) Supper was nice. Ham, scalloped potatoes and broccoli. Both little ones enjoyed a feast (ate ALL their dinner. It was nice.) Mr. Mister hit the sack (and boy did he ever. He was pooched!) and we all retired to the basement to watch the Lion King on blu-ray in 1080 HD. Apparently for the longest time we have been watching our HD/Blu-ray in 780, which is not technically HD. Papa Bear finally got his act together and set the tv up properly (like I know what I'm talking about.....not really......) and now we have spectacular tv with BOSE sound (once again, I'll have to take his work for it....). But it really is pretty spectacular and just like being at the movies. Nifty. Lil' Miss stayed awake for the whole movie and watched it. I was amazed. Although I think she was just too tired to be her traditional jumping bean self. Now I'm waiting for the sadness and nightmares to begin. A few sketchy parts, but of course we'll see how much impact they made tonight.

And that's it that's all. Tomorrow.....PUMPKIN PATCH!!!!!

Alright! Are you ready for pictures? Well here they come. Thanksgiving weekend DAY 1!!!! Today wasn't an overly spectacular day. Pretty routine. Mr. Mister was somewhat cranky today and uncooperative, which is really out of the norm for him. So not sure what's up there....other than yet another snotty nose and cough (poor stinker, he just can't get away from them!!!!) And Lil' Miss was in fine form and doing her usual. So enough chat, here's the pictures!

To start out our morning we headed for the park. NOBODY! wanted to nap this morning, so what better thing to do than go out and get some fresh air.

So Mr. Mister got his fair intake of sand. He got right down to it once I plunked him down. Does this mean he might have been hungrey?????? No. I'm going to take it as part of the 'experimenting' stage. I remember Lil' Miss doing this too. Then of course he got his dose of swinging. What little kid doesn't like that!?!?!

And Lil' Miss did her own version of swinging. Because we've graduated from just sitting on our butts on the swing. We swing on our tummys and now even stand on the seat! Plus she now goes down the slide on her tummy as well. We all know how that is going to end up one day.....splat. But for now she thinks it's fun.

So in the afternoon AFTER I forced everyone to have a nap (kids, dogs, I watched some PVR'd stuff.....woo!) we headed back outside. Mr.Mister was in even finer form, crying and complaining. I made him stay outside anyhow. And Lil' Miss helped me start cleaning up the backyard. Not all the leaves are off the trees yet, but we had to start filling our pumpkin bags so they'd be ready for Halloween. I only wanted to fill one, but got talked into filling the 2nd one...and ended up doing it on my own to boot because I'm the only one with a reasonable attention span. And Mr.Mister pretty much just crawled around and cried. But I did manage to get a couple of pictures of him without the tears.

We buried him in leaves! He didn't protest....too much.

And then Lil' Miss wanted in on some leaf action.

Here she's actually trying to pull Mr.Mister's thumb from his mouth. It wasn't budging. Shortly after we came back inside and he cheered up a bit more. After the two of them chased several golf balls around the kitchen for a bit, supper came, then bedtime routine. And that ended a fairly routine day at home. I'd have to say that I did get some fairly good pictures out of the day's events. And I hardly even tweaked them in my really sad photo program. Maybe there is something to using the manual setting on the fancy camera!

Tomorrow.....Turkey Dinner!!!!!!!!

Ok, so the weather here has been less than stellar. My concern? I'm missing all those fabulous colours out there! When am I supposed to go out and take cute kid pics in the fall leaves if it continues to be wet and cold?????? Boooooo! So I'm hoping for a turn around tomorrow and maybe a trip to someplace leafy and yellowy/orange with some red thrown in. And not all on the ground either. I want some of that up in the trees too.

And on that note it is Thanksgiving weekend starting tomorrow. And we shall be spending it in a small quiet way, which is ok. But because of this, I will attempt to post each day of the weekend and keep all those loved ones who are far away from us up to date and informed on all the happenings of this to-be action packed weekend! We do have a few things planned along with Thanksgiving dinner (to be held on Saturday, due to our action packed weekend!) and I'll try to blog them at the end of each day. It is my goal for this month. I actually want to do this for the Halloween weekend as well. We'll see how un-procrastinating I can be!

So I leave you with this....

Just a quick update for those wondering about my Threadcake. It lost out to peanut butter sandwiches, moldy zombie peanut butter sandwiches and the undead. So needless to say I was really disappointed. Especially because it seems everyone is infatuated with mold, disease, the undead and grossness. Having said that, the cakes that won were good, just not my style at all, so Ì am biased. But I did win because my birthday girl really loved it. And it was fun to eat. And pretty fun / non stressful to make.

I did try. I tried really hard. But I just couldn't do it. I wanted to try out for a scrapbook design team. I got all my poop in a group and had appropriate galleries and what nots. But at the last minute I chickened out. I'm not sure why. I couldn't press the submit button. But because of that I now have some layouts to show here! I've been on fire.

I didn't think I'd scrapbook anymore summer (beach house) pictures. But I couldn't help myself. I really want to remember the fun times on the beach so I guess the best way to do that is just keep scrapbooking the pictures. All of these were done with Cosmo Cricket paper. A style of paper that I didn't think I would normally use. Yet, I bought it on a whim (sale/clearance bin) because I have NO paper that says 'beach' to me. And I've now used it all up. Done.