A Beary Fun Day

Yesterday, we went to Sarah's 7th Birthday Party at Build-A-Bear Workshop.

The kids got to pick out an animal ... Emily picked out a bunny with soft pink ears. Then they picked a heart for their bear and went through a ritual where they rubbed it on their cheek, touched it to their ear, and kissed it before putting it inside their new friend.

Then they got to help put stuffing in their animal - they got to choose how soft or firm they wanted them.

Then the animals were sewed up with their stuffing and their heart inside.

Next, it was time to get their friends a bath. Emily was soooo cute brushing on her bunny. She really worked it over good, brushing her all over even her big pink ears. She knew exactly what to do.

Meet beautiful bunny "Sweetheart".

This is the whole group with their animals.

After everyone got their bears fixed up and dressed, we went out to the food court in the mall and had cupcakes and opened presents.

It was SUCH a fun party and Emily really likes her pretty bunny.

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The Feast Is On

This week in Emily's school folder, we got our "assignment" for the Thanksgiving Feast party. Yes, we were assigned a food item to bring. The paper said "1 cooked pumpkin pie".

Okay, fine, no problem. I have never made a pumpkin pie in my life, but how hard can it be? I could go the canned pumpkin route or I could use those little pumpkins that we got at the pumpkin patch the other week.

But you know these are four-year-olds we're talking about. I'm pretty sure they are not going to care much what the pumpkin pie tastes like as long as it comes with whipped topping. I may just pick up one at the grocery store. It just depends on how much time I end up with.

I usually make my homemade cracker jacks around Thanksgiving. This year, I am looking to find a new kind of popping corn to use. When we were at the pumpkin patch a few weeks ago, they were selling kettle corn. The popcorn had these huge puffy kernels. I wish I could find some corn like that for my cracker jacks.

I have not decided on anything else to fix for Thanksgiving. Note to self - maybe I should ask Mom what I need to bring. Wait, she'll read this before I even get a chance to ask. Love you Mom!

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Piggly Wiggly Flu

On Saturday, we took Emily to the county health department to get her first of two H1N1 shots. If you recall, we just went to get the seasonal flu shot a few weeks ago and so it did not take Emily long to figure out that today was going to be a repeat of that performance. She was understandably upset about what was about to happen.

Luckily, we did not have to wait very long. We pretty much just walked right in and filled out the paperwork. They were having a "vaccination blitz" which meant that there were probably a dozen places you could go to get shots this weekend.

I had to hold Emily and she was crying and it was awful. After we were done, she got to choose a bear and she got a sticker for her shirt. On the way home, I asked why she cried and she said "because I wanted a bear". Ha!

Here's a picture of Emily with her new bear. She was a little put off that it didn't have a face.

I asked her to show me a model's pose and this is what happened ---->

Hehe, so cute.

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Vroom Vroom

I think I've hinted several times that "Mama got a new toy". It's something special and mostly for me. I just love it.

It's hardworking ...

Small, but mighty ...

Voraciously independent ...

A real busy little bee ...

It's a robot ...

Just for me ...

A Roomba!

Sometimes I feel a little guilty when the Roomba vacuum is running because it's working and I'm not. I love how it gets under furniture. It's so easy just to let it work while I do something else. It really does a good job too. It picks up all kinds of dirt and debris. My floors have never looked so good.
I use the Roomba on the carpet in the living room and bedrooms and the vinyl flooring in the kitchen. I've also used it on bathroom rugs and an indoor/outdoor rug in the laundry room. I've used it several times in Emily's room, but only once in my bedroom. Sadly, my bedroom floor hasn't been clear enough to run the Roomba since then. Just being real with ya'll ...
I got the 530 model which goes back to its charging base when it finishes the cleaning cycle or the battery gets low. It's such a nice feature. My Roomba "sleeps" under an end table and I don't even have to put it away when it's done cleaning.
That's my kind of cleaning!

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Picture Day

Thursday was Picture Day at Emily's school. I had been trying to find her a pants set to wear for her Pre-K picture - something brightly colored but simple in design. I wanted to find just the right thing because I kept thinking that this will be the first of her "school pictures".

I have a photo album page that's filled with all my school pictures in order from kindergarten to high school. I imagine Emily will have something similar too when she gets older. It's so fun to look back and see how they changed from year to year.

Last weekend, Mike took me and Emily shopping for a picture day outfit. Like I said, I wanted to find a pants outfit for Emily to wear. Well, I didn't like any of the pants and shirts that the store had, but I found a cute jumper. Do I really want to send my pre-kindergartner to school wearing a jumper? A jumper with a white shirt? "Sure, why not?"

So we got this purple jumper ...

... with a white shirt ... and white pantyhose. I picked an older pair of tights because I had this feeling that Emily would get a hole in her pantyhose ... which she did. BUT ... the hole was not nearly as big as I'd imagined ... and not nearly as noticeable. I thought they would be ripped to shreds. Ha!

The night before picture day, I showed her the jumper outfit again to confirm that she'd be willing to wear it the next day. (You do remember the whole Halloween costume situation, right?)

She wanted to know if I would be at school when they took her picture. "No". Will my friends be there for picture day? "Yes" Okay she was good with that answer and she would wear the outfit.

I think she really enjoyed wearing the dress to school. She is really a girly girl. She loves wearing dresses and ruffled shirts and silky nightgowns. She also loves to have her fingernails and toenails painted. She tells me that she doesn't want anyone looking at her when they are unpainted. She says "I don't want anyone to see my fingers - they're naked!"

She likes to pick the color of the polish. And she bosses me around "Mom, this polish is old. You can take off this old polish and then put on a new color."

Oh the joys of motherhood. Little girls are the best! "Sugar and spice and everything nice. That's what little girls are made of."

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Pre-K Halloween Party

On Friday afternoon, Emily's class had their Halloween party. I drove down from work to be with Emily at her party. I was about 10 minutes late due to traffic on the highway. Grrrr!

The kids had pizza, veggies and dip, and cookies at their party. Then they played a game where they put their hands into a tub of "goop" and try to find a centipede. If they find it, they win a prize.

When I got to the classroom, one little boy was already in time out by the door. Another one was laying face down on the floor and didn't get up the entire time I was there. One of the teachers eventually picked him up and moved him to a corner instead of the middle of the floor. I am wondering if this was typical for a day in Pre-K.

3-D

On Friday night, Mike and Emily and I went to see "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" in 3-D at the theater. There were not very many people at the movies that night since it was trick-or-treat night in a lot of communities around here. Emily did pretty good with keeping her 3-D glasses on during the movie.

She also ate almost a whole box of Hot Tamales!!! She really likes hot stuff like that. It does not seem to affect her very much. If it was me, I would have sucked down a large soda with it but she was fine.

I think this was the first 3-D movie I had ever seen. We all had a good time together.

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Happy Halloween!

I hope you all had fun-filled Halloween. As you may know, we've been debating for weeks about what costume Emily would wear for Halloween. We had two costumes - an angel and Princess Ariel. Emily decided that .... she did not want to dress up and she did not want to go trick-or-treating.

Instead of trick-or-treating, we went out for pizza. We went to Old Chicago for some deep dish pizza. It was yum! All the waiters and waitresses were dressed up in costumes - a kitty cat, a fairy, a cowgirl, a prisoner, a leopard kitty, a dude with a mullet, a Hawaiian tourist, and a Hippie.

Emily and Mom

('Scuse my look - I slept for several hours this afternoon and it ruined my look)

Dad

After that we went and picked out a new Wii game. While we were in Best Buy, Emily showed me the Nintendo that she wants for Christmas and allllll the games that she wanted. I hope Santa has deep pockets this year.

Before we went home, we stopped by Chick-fil-a for an ice cream cone. Before we even got out of the drive-thru, Emily's ice cream had already fall off the cone. *sigh* What a mess!

When we got home, Emily opened a package that had come in the mail for her. It was from Grandmother and Granddaddy and it was full of all of Emily's favorite things - Halloween book, coloring book, stickers, stampers, chocolate candy, and Boo-mallows just to name a few!

After playing our new Wii game for a bit, it was time for Emily to go to bed. Daylight Savings Time ends tonight so I went ahead and set Emily's clock back an hour. She won't call me in the morning until her clock says 7:00 so I will be able to sleep in a little bit in the morning.

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Pumpkin Patchin'

Okay, as promised, I uploaded several pictures from our field trip to the pumpkin patch. Emily and her classmates road the school bus - her first time. First, they went to the park and then to the Orr Family Farm.

Getting off the bus at the park. The lady with the camera is the teacher's assistant.

So excited, but it's cool and windy

Sliding is always fun

Emily was chasing a little boy around ... I kept my eye on him and took his picture then asked Emily who was in the picture - Jaydon, of course!



I was taking a picture of Emily's teacher taking a picture of Emily. She wanted Emily to sit on the edge of the slide, but other kids kept sliding down.

Who can pass up a turn on the swings? And if you must know, Jaydon was swinging right next to her.

The park had lots of tunnels and monkey bars and some really cool tire swings.

Next, it was time for sack lunches in the park.

Standing in line to get on the bus to the pumpkin patch - Say "Pumpkin!"

All of Emily's class before they loaded up on the bus

Our first stop was the animal barn. This little old goat was grabbing people's clothes as they walked by his cage. It was so so crowded in there that I don't think the kids could see much of the animals.

Then we took a hayride (minus the hay) to the pumpkin patch.

Everyone got to pick a pumpkin. This is Emily and her friend Jaydon comparing pumpkins.

Emily and I also rode the carousel. I didn't get any pictures of that since I was riding too. Emily rode a pink horse .. I 'walked' beside.

I think all the kids had a fun time even though we didn't get to do as much at the farm as we'd liked.

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Picking Punkins at the Punkin Patch

Today, Emily and I had a very busy day at her first Pre-K field trip. They went to a local park to play for a while. They ate their sack lunches at the park. Then we went to Orr Family Farm to visit the animals, go on a hay ride, and pick pumpkins at the pumpkin patch.

I took lots of pictures on the field trip, but I have not had a chance to pull them off the camera and upload them yet. I am really just too too too tired.

Hopefully I will be able to share some pictures with you tomorrow night.

And ... don't let me forget to tell you all what happened at Cubbies tonight. I was hoping for an easy night, but maybe that did not happen. Don't let me forget!

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Recharging My Batteries

Tonight, I'm recharging my batteries both literally and figuratively.

We're going to the Punkin' Patch field trip in the morning so I've got to get my camera batteries all charged up. I fully intend to take a lot of pictures of this special event. I have been so bad about posting pictures recently. I need to get some new ones for everyone.

I'm going to spend my evening relaxing and hopefully get a good night's rest tonight. I've had an awful time sleeping this week with all the coughing and the mad stuffy nose. Last night, I took some Benadryl and I was s00000 out of it. I could not keep my eyes open.

I haven't taken any medication tonight and so I am feeling better. I just hope I can fall asleep and stay asleep tonight.

I will admit that I'm not looking forward to being out in the cool air all day tomorrow with my cough and stuffy nose. I was thinking maybe I should wear a paper mask, but that would probably embarrass my child and freak out her whole class. Lets just pray for a warm day!

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What will I be?

I'm sure you're fully aware that Halloween is next Saturday. We've bought Emily two different costumes - Tinker Bell and an angel. Of course, Emily does not want to wear either one of those costumes ... or any of the other 150 store-bought or homemade or "your own clothing" costumes that we've suggested.

So what will Emily be for Halloween? My guess is that she'll be dressed as "Emily". Want to make a bet?

If you remember Halloween last year, you might recall that Emily does NOT like to see people dressed in costumes. She starts crying and shaking sooo bad. We have been talking for weeks about how there are "just people" in those costumes. It's probably somebody's mom or dad. That's not so scary, is it?

I guess we'll see on Saturday.

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Best Laid Plans

Last week was a pretty tough week. All the "best laid plans" did not work out as we'd planned. Emily got sick then I got sick then we got flu shots then our "Girls Weekend" was cancelled.

One of our problems this week was that we did not have a working thermometer. We thought Emily felt okay, but we didn't know if her fever was truly gone. If she still had a low fever, they would likely check her when she went to school and then we'd just be back at the beginning where we started this week.

So one night after work, we went into town to try to find a thermometer. I ran into the drugstore while Mike and Emily waited in the car. I was going to get a forehead scan thermometer since I knew that was what they used at Emily's school, but they were out of those. The only thing left were the under-the-tongue variety or old fashioned mercury thermometers. I got an 8-second under-the-tongue thermometer and hoped Emily wouldn't throw a fit over that one.

While I was standing in line to check out, I noticed the drugstore had all their Halloween candy out beside the registers. They had these mixed bags of Reeses candies - Reeses Cups, Reeses Sticks, Reeses Fast Breaks ... and my personal favorite ... Reeses Pieces. So I grabbed a bag. It was an impulse buy - what can I say?

When I got into the car, I pulled out the bag and said "This bag of candy just jumped into my buggy when I was walking by!" Emily just thought that was soooo funny. We were laughing and talking about how that whole situation might have gone down. "Hey Lady!" "Take me home!" "Hehe, she doesn't see us in her buggy!" That was a good bag of candy. It made me sick baby girl laugh and laugh.

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Improvement

Emily seems to be feeling better today. She did not have a fever this morning, but she's still coughing a little. Since she's been fever-free for 24 hours, she'll probably be going back to school in the morning. Tonight, she asked me if her best friend at school - a little boy named Jayden - knows that she had been sick. Yep .. I think he knows.

Before school tomorrow, we're going to go get our seasonal flu shots. The county health department is going to be at our church administering the shots in the morning. Anyone want to place a wager on how long we'll have to stand in like for that?

Tonight, I told Emily that we would all be getting a "little poke in the arm" in the morning before school. She did not think that was a good idea at all. Then I told her that we would go get some breakfast after we were done. She thought that might be okay. I doubt it will be okay in the morning when we get there.

Our plans for the weekend are still up in the air at this point. Even though Emily is feeling better, I would still hate to pass along any germs to the family. Besides Emily, my throat has been pretty scratchy today. I hope I'm not coming down with something too. Lets hope not because we have been planning this trip for a long time and we really want to go!

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God Has a Way

God always has a way of slowing you down when the busyness of life overtakes you. This week, we have been slowed way down due to illness.

On Monday morning, I got that call from the school that all parents dread "Your child is running a fever. Please come pick her up." So off I go to the school to pick up Miss Emily who was coughing and running a low-grade fever.

Today was Mike's turn to stay home with Emily. From what I gather, they played Wii and watched TV most of the day. If Emily is still running a fever tomorrow, it will be my turn to stay home with her again.

Fortunately for Emily (and me, too), the field trip to the punkin' patch was postponed due to predicted stormy weather tomorrow. We'll go next Wednesday. At least she is not missing out on her first field trip!

Continuing our slowdown this week, Emily and I will be missing Cubbies tomorrow night. We don't want to spread germs around to a bunch of other little kids and Emily will need to get more good rest tomorrow night anyway.

I'm hopeful that Emily will be feeling better in time for our trip this weekend and that I won't catch what she has. I would hate to miss our trip, but I don't want to get anyone else sick either.

Only time will tell, but God has a way ...

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Way Behind and A(nother) Busy Week

I'm sorry to admit that I'm way behind on blog updates. I still need to tell you about my new gift to myself, my new project, and my fall flowers.

But I'm not going to talk about any of those things. Instead, I'm going to talk about colors. My little Emily loves to color. I bought her a box of 48 crayons this weekend and she has been busy coloring ever since. Scratch that .. WE have been busy coloring ever since. She likes to sit up on the arm of my chair and we color together.

I have tried to get her to keep the crayons in the box when not in use, but so far that has not happened. I have been finding them stuck down the side of my chair, on the floor, in my purse ... you get the idea.


Football Saturday

In case you didn't know, this weekend was the Red River Rivalry/OU-Texas weekend. We chose not to go down to Dallas, but we had a party at home instead. We ate Little Smokies, tortilla roll-ups, chips and Ro-tel dip, and coconut cream pie. Yum!

After lunch, Emily and I took a nap and so Football Saturday was over for us. Not for Mike, of course.


More Firsts

This week, we're going to have more "Firsts" at Emily's school. We'll have our first Field Trip to the punkin' patch followed by our first Parent-Teacher Conference. In many ways, I feel very unprepared for all these new firsts in the world of school children. Who am I to be making decisions for another human being? Me, and only by the grace of God!

I know we're going to have a blast though!

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Fall Break

This Thursday and Friday is Fall Break for Emily. Unbelievably, it's been nine weeks since the start of the school year. I was noticing this last night while I was signing Emily's Monday Folder for school. I've signed it nine times already!

Along with the break from school, this week is also a break from AWANA Cubbies. We'll "celebrate" by coming straight home from work and resting. That sounds good to me!

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Chubby Cubby and his Five Feisty Friends

Tonight at Awana Cubbies, we had five children in our class. As is the case every week this year, we only had one girl. We have one boy who is often very feisty and one girl who is often very loud. Anyway, it's a good group of kids.

Tonight for snack, we had apples and cereal. A bit of an odd combination, but I digress ...

Somehow, I was in charge of cutting up the apples. All of our kids wanted the peeling off the apples .. of course. So I was going to be fancy and cut the apples through the middle to make a star shape on the inside. And in perfect Jennifer style, I cut my finger with the knife on the very first slice.

And the moral of this story is: Do not give a Cubbies teacher a sharp knife. Ever never never!

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What's for lunch?

For the last few weeks, Mike has been packing Emily's lunch for school each morning. He usually fixes her a sandwich with some string cheese and fruit or maybe carrots or something. Sometimes she eats (or throws away?) most of it. Sometimes she does not.

Yesterday, she came home with about 75% of her sandwich, all of her cheese, and all of her fruit still in her lunch box. Mike asked her about this and she said that she did not want Daddy fixing her lunch any more. She said that she wanted to eat in the cafeteria.

So this morning we sent Emily to school with lunch money instead of a lunch box.

This afternoon, she came home and said that she ate a hot dog and coleslaw for lunch. She said her teacher said "Oh Emily, you ate all your lunch!" I don't know if I believe that part, but I guess we'll go with this new lunch plan for now.

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Oh Those Rainy Days

Yesterday was one of those rainy and cool days. After church, we went to lunch at Ted's. Emily wanted to go there so that we could get a gift card for her teacher for her birthday. I really thought Emily would choose to get a gift card from Sonic, but she surprised me and said Ted's. She said her teacher really likes Ted's. All throughout lunch, Emily was whispering in my ear about her teacher. I was not sure if she thought she saw her teacher there or she was just excited to be getting her a gift. After about the 150th time, I finally decided that she was probably just excited.

After lunch, we had to go to the store and run some errands in town then we headed home for a nap.

And after nap, it was time for one of our favorite rainy day activities - baking cookies. I don't know if you would call it a tradition, but I have many fond memories of baking cookies on rainy days.

And Emily wanted to help with everything ...

Unwrapping the butter

Cracking the eggs (apologies to whomever gets the cookies with the shells in it)

And, of course, licking the beaters (notice her methodical licking style)



It's GOOD stuff!

Emily told me to stop taking her picture while she was eating. She was busy! (Ha!)

Those cookies were mighty fine. We put chocolate chips, chocolate chunks, and pecans in them.

And did you notice my new Mickey Mouse measuring cups??? My mother-in-law brought these home for me from Disney World. They are SO cute.

We love rainy days.

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Shelfishly

This weekend, Mike helped me put up some shelves that I bought a couple weeks ago. (Hobby Lobby, 50% off - Score!) I wanted something to go over the TV since we are not ready to purchase an entertainment center for our new TV yet. We were able to get one side of each shelf into a stud in the wall. The other side was hung using a wall anchor.




We also hung a small shelf by the clock. I want to put some pictures and maybe some greenery on the shelves, but I haven't gotten that far yet.

I will admit that this was a multi-day project for us. Each shelf came with a pattern that I cut out and taped onto the wall to try different positions for the shelves. After I moved them all around several times, I finally decided on a basic configuration. Then I had to identify the studs. I knew I wanted at least one end in the studs for stability so I had to change my configuration based on where the studs were located.

After I located the studs, I had to level the shelves. During this process, one of the paper patterns ripped and so I had to "make do" and still try to get the thing level. After I did all this, I asked Mike to check (and adjust) the level.

I followed the mantra "Level twice, screw once." Even with this, one of the shelves ended up un-level when it was installed on the wall. Argh! We finally got that one worked out. I would say it was smooth sailing, but really it was not.'

But ... all's well that ends well.

So what do you think? I think it will look a lot better when I get something on the shelves.

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