Thursday, June 22, 2006

Is You Happy Is You Nose

Chloe singing- Is you happy is you nose clap your hands- is you happy is you nose clap your hands- is you happy is you nose then you face shuly shows- is you happy is you nose clap your hands.

I love to hear her sing songs from church and it's hilarious that those words are what she thinks she's hearing. I love kids. Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Happy Father's Day

OK, so I know it's not Father's Day but I should document our fun filled, busy weekend. Of course, I should add that Travis was on call this weekend and it was a really, really busy weekend for that. But he got pages mostly at night so he was working all day Thursday and Friday and then all night so Friday and Saturday he really wanted/needed to sleep so we didn't see him a whole lot on those days. But we still had a great weekend and did spend time together when there wasn't sleeping going on.

So yeah, I know this isn't a picture of one of my kids but it's so darn cute! I was trying to get some candid shots- which is difficult once the kids realize you're taking pictures- and he looked at me and got embarrased/confused/temporarily drunk, I'm not sure but it was cute anyway.

So we rented Cornerstone's playground along with the Kelsos and another couple for Father's Day. When Mary first asked if we'd like to do it I wasn't sure if it was something Travis would like but I was wrong. He was so excited about it, even with his lack of sleep. So, we went and played and Travis had a great time and so did the girls. Oh, and I should mention one girl in particular- our little 18 month old daredevil went down the 3 story slide all by herself! What!?! We let her go down the slide by herself? Of course we didn't LET her go by herself she just got away from Travis and slid down head first by herself. So the story goes like this. If you've ever been in the 3 story play area at Cornerstone you know that adults and kids think it's amazing but it is somewhat intimidating for some younger kids. Inside the play area there are several obstacles on each level leading to a 2 story slide and a 3 story slide. Well, if you're a big person helping a very small (Halle) person you either have to go over the obstacle first and then pull her over or put her over the obstacle first and then you go over. Travis chose the latter approach (as I have done also) and had gotten her over all of the obstacles and put her in the entrance of the slide. The entrance is a little area that you sit in to prepare to go down. Well as he was trying to get over the last obstacle she headed toward the slide and Travis told her to stop but in typical Halle fashion, she went down head first. Then Travis said laughing (seriously laughing- I could have killed him) with Kris laughing too, Amy, Halle just went down the slide by herself. I was half way up to the slide and couldn't get to her easily and of course my reaction was "WHAT DO YOU MEAN HALLE WENT DOWN THE SLIDE BY HERSELF- I CAN'T GET TO HER!!!" . OK, I didn't really yell like that but I wanted to. I was trying to use restraint since we weren't the only ones there. So, I tried to get down quickly waiting to hear Halle screaming but all I heard was a little midget voice say "whee". Whee!?! I'm about to have a heart attack and she says *WHEE*! Well, it's Halle, what else would she say?

So, Sunday was spent going to church, my making burritos, chocolate pudding, and flan. OK, you can't really call it flan because it came in a package and it wasn't very good. It wasn't my error this time it just didn't taste good. Really, can you expect to get a dessert like that out of a package? I found a recipe for it and it looks good but the difficulty level is expert. I am by no means an expert baker but it doesn't look all that difficult maybe it's the carmelization process, I don't know but I think I'll try it once.

Anyway, the rest of the day was spent resting and we played our first game as a family! Chloe has been begging us to play Monopoly Jr. with her and I didn't think she was really ready for it but we played anyway and I was definitely wrong. She rolled the die, moved her car the exact number of spaces and when she had to pay for landing on a space she'd say "two dollard coming right up". She was so sweet. The only time she tried to "cheat" was when she wanted to roll a one so she could land on "see the fireworks pay $2". She just barely dropped the die on the board so it would be on one but we made her roll anyway. She didn't get a one and didn't land on the fireworks show and she cried- a lot. But on her next turn she landed on "see the dolphins pay $2" and she was very happy. I think your first family game is definitely a milestone. And everyone on Trav's side of the family will be very proud- they all LOVE games. Overall, it was a great family weekend. Posted by Picasa
This is what happens when your 18 month old gets hold of a marker- thankfully it's washable.
I re-made the Jello Jigglers and they turned out just fine. I was surprised at how durable they are when you make them correctly. I think you could throw them and they'd stay
together and they tasted pretty good. The only thing I'd change is that I would pick 4 or 5 shapes and do one line straight down rather than letting the girls do it randomly so that you'd get more jigglers. As it is we got a few jigglers and I had to just cut the rest up. It's not like cookie dough that you can mush back together and cut more shapes.







And finally, after months and months of care my moss rose has finally produced a rose! Seriously, I think I planted these in January. Yes, too soon but the package said you could plant them indoors, blah, blah, blah. The problem is that in January our house is never even in the 70's so they sprouted but they didn't grow very big at all. It wasn't until I could actually put them outside that they grew and finally bloomed. This whole growing plants from seeds is definitely delayed gratification. I think next year I'll buy some potted flowers and some seeds for Chloe to watch. That way we'll have something pretty to look at while we wait. Posted by Picasa

Friday, June 16, 2006

Did you know that you could mess up Jello Jigglers?

Well, if you didn't know before now you do. I was at the grocery store the other night and stumbled upon the Jello section. I thought, hmmm, easy cheap dessert that Chloe will love helping me make...ooh, and I could make Jigglers. So Chloe picked out grape (of all flavors my least favorite) and I told her we'd make Jello Jigglers. Extreme excitement ensued, never mind that she had no idea what Jello Jigglers were. So we went to the store and bought a new pan since I didn't have the right size and made a big to do about the "event". Seriously, everything is an event at my house. Anyway, we made the Jello, put it in the pan and waited the required 3 hours for them to be done. When the time was up (after Chloe asked about 58 times if they were done yet and my threatening to not let her cut any) we brought out the pan, the camera, the Florida cookie cutters and Amanda decided to join the fun- really my 16 year old was excited. AND- they were a mushy mess- actually they were just Jello like. I couldn't figure out what went wrong because I had thrown the boxes away and wasn't going to dig through the trash. Needless to say I had disapointed BOTH girls and felt like a huge creep. Then I remembered that I had a bigger box of Lime Jello in the pantry and looked over the directions, which I might add are a bit confusing- at least to me. But apparently I had mixed HALF as much Jello with TWICE as much water as I needed. So, um, yeah I'm a dork. But I'm making up for it today by making Sugar Cookies and we'll finally be using our Florida cookie cutters (we bought them at Christmas time in Lakeland).
So on the creative front: I did the Sun painting yesterday (watercolor on paper). It's my rendition of Sun pictures I used to see in FL. I definitely like it but there are lots of things I would change. First of all, I would like for the Blue to be much darker to make the Sun really pop but it's not possible with watercolor- at least I don't think so- I would rather it was in acrylic (which I've never used but I know I'll love them) and I would use a much larger, square canvas.
The other picture is my attempt at an Illustrated Friday topic, underwater life that I've started but am stuck and can't seem to finish it. I've spent a lot of time snorkeling and finding all kind of cool stuff in the ocean but I'm afraid to paint anyting else for fear of messing it up. I think I'll need for the girls to be gone and for the entire house to be quiet in order to be able to finish it. I've seen watercolor that people draw things in first and then paint them (I'm not talking about what Tisra does- that is completely different and very cool and I think she should sell prints of that piece) but I don't like the pencil lines in my artwork. That's just another reason I don't want watercolor to be my primary medium; I've quit saying I don't like it.

So, that pretty much sums it up. Have a great weekend. Posted by Picasa

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Amanda has her Driver(s) License as of this past Tuesday but we haven't let her actually drive by herself until just now. Yes, my 16 year old is on the road right this second- Trav and I just prayed. Anyway, the reason that we haven't let her drive is that she's not ready. As of Tuesday she couldn't even park straight. And she really hadn't been that motivated to do it correctly, I guess just figuring that she'd get it right AFTER she had her license. So, you're probably wondering how she got her license to begin with. Well, in the driving test she had to take a right onto a main road and then drive through a subdivision and back to the DMV- that's it. When I took my driver test you had to be able to do several things and among them was reading signs, a three point turn, and parallel parking. If you didn't pass the parallel parking part you failed the test. I know a lot of people said (then) that you don't have to parallel park often so you shouldn't have to do it but I think that by making you parallel park it shows that you know how to handle the vehicle you're driving. Anyway, Amanda has been working very hard and has gone out with Travis to practice so we felt that she was ready to make the short trip to Wal-Mart. Of course, I still have butterflies and am second guessing myself but I'm sure she'll do fine. I'm glad that it will be at least 11 more years until Chloe starts driving. Posted by Picasa

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Birthday Bash, Busted Lip, Build A Bear, Burned Finger and a Host of Other Things That May or May Not Start With the Letter B

So, big birthday #5. My baby is growing so fast *sniff*. She really wanted a party with friends, cake, and games but our apartment is just too small to accomodate our friends and their growing families. So we decided that dinner and Build-A-Bear would be a nice treat for everyone.
We hadn't ever taken the girls to the Rainforest Cafe and Chloe decided that's where she'd like to go. So to make it extra special we bought a birthday dress for her along with very special birthday butterfly wings for her to wear to dinner.

We were having a great time and hadn't been at the restaurant very long when Chloe said that she needed to go potty. Amanda was kind enough to take her but unfortunately they came back to the table just as the "thunderstorm" started inside the restaurant- it is the Rainforest Cafe you know. Well, Chloe was terrified and decided to run to the safe arms of her Daddy but she missed...and hit her mouth on the back of his chair. It must have been a hard one because her teeth went through her lip. Really, we were there less than 10 minutes. In an instant I could see all of her excitement drain away and I was so upset. It's funny but I was really excited about it too so I was afraid that the evening was going to be ruined. But we had a great server that was kind enough to offer Chloe custody of her flashlight- one of Chloe's most favorite things in the world- so between that and the $6 Icee we bought her (seriously $6 bucks for an Icee) she recovered quickly. I was so proud of her. She always tries to make the best of everything and she just shrugged it off and got over it. It did affect her smiles for photos so I'll make sure to document it when I scrapbook.

After dinner we made our first trip to Build a Bear and let Chloe pick out just what she wanted. So, she picked out a purple bear named Purpley Claire Button (get it, purple eclaire, hahaha). She had decided to name it Purpley but there's a spot for a middle name when you type it in to the computer so she asked, "what goes with purpley?" so my response was "Claire" and she went for it. I really wasn't expecting to pay that much for a stuffed bear but they make the last stop clothing for a reason, so we have a very well dressed stuffed purple bear. I really should have just made a dinner and bought a coloring book, I always go overboard. Next year...

So the next day was church and she got to go to the five year old class for the first time. She was excited. Then Mom and Dad took us to lunch, we parted ways with them in Cool Springs and we went home for naps. Later on we made a birthday cake together and Travis took her to the store to pick out some soda and the kind of ice cream she wanted- strawberry. She decided that the cake should be a bundt, which was fine with me because it's easier to frost. Then came singing and cake eating which leads me to the burned finger portion of the post. We purchased a number candle rather than the stick ones and I guess it took a little while for us to sing and for her to blow it out so a puddle of wax had accumulated by the time all of that was done. So while I was locating a knife to cut the cake with and Travis was doing something else Chloe decided to take the candle off of the cake to lick the icing off. And you guessed it the hot wax dripped on one of her fingers and extreme screaming ensued. My poor baby. I really felt like everything nice that I had planned for her went terribly wrong. It didn't take too long for her to recover and, again, she shook it off but I felt bad. I'm still kind of sad that everything didn't go perfectly.

She was happy and felt that we had properly celebrated her birth except for the gifts. My Mom and Dad purchased a very pretty, very girly bed for her: headboard, footboard, and mattress set and we shelled out a lot for dinner and BAB but to her it just wasn't the same without friends and opening several little presents...next year we're having cake, ice cream, soda and friends- that's it. I think my expectations won't be so high that way and she'll feel like she had a real birthday party.

It's funny but I remember very few birthday parties that I actually had my little friends over for. I remember having mostly family birthday parties and anytime my parents asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday and I always asked to go to the Kapok Tree. You can see pics here and here. Even as a kid I was a nerd but I loved it. I'll write more about that later, this post is already too long. But I guess I was pushing what I would like for myself on Chloe. Live and learn.

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