Zing, Zang, Zoom

Our family went to the circus last Friday as a late birthday activity for Emily and Elise. The kids (especially Ben) loved it. Nate and I thought it was okay. Maybe we had too high of expectations with the whole “Greatest Show on Earth” thing. There were parts that were absolutely amazing mixed in with parts that were not. The show lasted 2 hours. 45 minutes of that was highly entertaining; the rest was blah, blah, blah. The acrobats and the high wire act were definitely highlights, and (in Nate’s words) the horses and zebras should be sent to the glue factory. (Katie, he doesn’t really mean it; that was just the most boring part of the show.)

We got there early for the preshow. They let you go onto the arena floor an hour early to meet the clowns and watch some other small scale events. It was fun to have a front row seat to some clowning and acrobatics. They even brought out a couple of elephants that painted pictures with their trunks and played a little soccer. It was very cool.





After the show we took the kids to Firehouse Pizzeria for dinner. They loved it as much as we do. We wish they would build a franchise in our town!

Home Depot Fieldtrip

Elise went on her first preschool fieldtrip yesterday to the Home Depot. They got to do cool things like see how to mix paint and take turns scanning things at the checkout. Then they each built a little bean bag toss game. She wanted Nate to go with her, so he took a couple of hours off work to go. I’m glad that his hours are flexible enough that he can do fun things like this with the kids in the middle of the day. They had a great time together.

Retro Post - Goodbye Peanut

Abby was born with a preauricular tag. It was harmless (just some extra cartilage and skin in front of her ear), but it kind of freaked me out in the delivery room. I thought it was a miniature third ear and I started counting all of her fingers and toes to make sure she didn’t have any other extra appendages. It was shaped like a little peanut, so that’s what we called it.

Two years ago today (when she was six months old), she had plastic surgery to have it removed. The surgery mostly went well. We forgot to wrap her ear in saran wrap after we put the Lidocaine cream on, so it wasn’t really numb when they gave her the shot. She screamed. Then, they had to put her on a papoose board for the surgery. She screamed more. It was not pleasant to watch. By the time we left the doctor’s office, she was fine. She had a quick recovery and healed up beautifully.

Wipeout

Watching this show has become a Wednesday night tradition in this house. The kids work hard to get all of their jobs done before 7:00 and then we head downstairs to watch together on the big screen. The kids love all the physical comedy. I love hearing them laugh out loud and make funny comments for an hour. It is seriously one of my favorite parts of the week. We’re already looking forward to next season.

Potty Training Progress

At 9:00 Saturday night we realized that we had run out of diapers for Abby. Neither of us wanted to go to the store, so we decided we would just start potty training. We’ve been planning on doing it for a while, but life keeps getting in the way and it just never seems like a good time. So, ready or not (I’m definitely not), we are embarking on our fourth adventure in potty training.

Sunday and Monday were very hit and miss and I was already starting to have second thoughts. Today we had an amazing breakthrough. Abby stayed dry ALL DAY. That includes a two hour PTA meeting and being at the park for an hour during Emily’s soccer practice. There were even three times today that she said “I need to go tinkle” (which usually means “I just tinkled”) and she was still dry! I’m trying not to be too optimistic . . . I don’t want to jinx it by celebrating too early. Still, a big part of me is hoping that it could be just this easy. We’ll see what tomorrow holds.

My favorite part is that when she is sitting on the toilet she’ll look up (with a very serious expression) and say “I needs pwizacy.” I love it!

In Other News

Saturday was Rachel’s baptism. We sure love that girl! We had fun spending the day with family.

On Labor Day, our friends invited us to go to the park with them for a little soccer scrimmage. The kids had a great time playing at the park.

Emily finally mastered the art of riding a two-wheeler. She was a little distraught about being the “only” six-year old who still had training wheels (the curse of living on a hill). Nate was a great trainer. She mostly had it down a couple of weeks ago, but she perfected the start and stop on Monday.

Elise started preschool this week. She has been looking forward to going to Miss Jamee’s for months and was so excited. She walked right in all by herself. I’m glad that she is such an independent girl. I’ve been looking forward to the freedom of just having one kid with me for 7 ½ hours a week. Unfortunately, Abby didn’t get the memo that she is supposed to be pleasant and cooperative while I drag her around town running errands. Hopefully she’ll catch on to that idea pretty soon.

Birthday Central

We had a busy birthday week at this house.

My birthday was last Tuesday. I wasn’t thrilled about turning 35, but I got over it . . . mostly. Nate stayed home long enough to make breakfast and get the kids off to school. After that, it was pretty much a normal day. I did get lots of phone calls and email messages from my family and friends. That made me happy. Nate and the kids gave me some fun presents and we went to Burger Bar for dinner and milkshakes. It was a nice day.

Emily turned seven on Friday. She had come home from school with a fever and a headache on Thursday, and I was a little afraid she would be sick on her birthday. Luckily she woke up feeling fine. She had a great day at school. She took donuts for her birthday treat and all of her classmates made birthday cards that her teacher bound together in a cute little book. She got to open her presents as soon as she got home. Her favorite was a new watch from Grandma Reatha that has different colored bands and faces so she can match her outfit. (I’m pretty thrilled about having something else to slow down her morning routine.) The rest of the day was full of lots of family fun. Emily wanted to have a campout in our back yard. She chose hotdogs and corn on the cob for dinner (kind of funny since up until three weeks ago she HATED hotdogs). After dinner, we played some croquet in the back yard and then Nate set up a TV and DVD player in the tent so we could watch Annie (Emily’s pick) before going to sleep. It was great fun.

Elise turned five on Sunday. Other than getting dry erase marker all over her brand new dress and having all the frosting melt off the sides of her cake (both of which caused me a lot of stress but didn’t bother her in the least), it was a fabulous day. We let her open her presents before church and the kids spent much of the rest of the day playing with them. She’s wanted Bendaroos ever since she saw the commercials in California, so we got her a big box of Wikki Stix (close enough). She liked them, but Grandma Reatha was the winner again by giving her a mermaid doll that changes colors in different temperatures of water. She played with it all day. Since it was the Sabbath, we kept things pretty low key. We had a yummy dinner of chicken roll ups, played a few hands of Go Fish, and watched a movie (mostly just the kids watched since Nate and I have reached our Charlie and the Chocolate Factory limit for the year). Elise wanted to go swimming for her birthday activity so we went to the pool on Monday. The weather cooperated and we had a great time. We put Abby in the floatie swimsuit for the first time and she loved it. She was swimming all over the pool. The big news of the day was that Elise was finally brave enough to jump off the diving board . . . twice. Hurray!

I picked the flip flop cake because I thought it would be cute and easy. Turns out that I was wrong on both counts. Oh well. Better luck next year.

I must say that I give two big thumbs up for small family birthday parties. Two years ago we decided to opt out of the rat race of celebrating birthdays with our extended family. It was getting a little out of control with three or four birthdays a month. Not everybody was happy with our decision, but it was one of the best choices we have made. We love being able to focus on our kids and what they want to do and we certainly don’t miss the hassle of trying to work around everyone else’s holiday weekend plans (since we were inconsiderate enough to be born around a national holiday). There is no stress about coordinating schedules or cleaning the house or getting the yard ready. We can just relax and make fun memories with our little family. We highly recommend it.

Tip of the day: Murphy’s Oil Soap is apparently the only thing that will get “washable” dry erase marker out of clothes . . . or at least mostly out. I tried seven other home remedies before stumbling across that one. Thank everything for Google searches!