It's the most magical time of the year

Today, Santa visited Katherine's school. She sat on his lap and asked for a stuffed owl and a robot Katherine and Robot Lauren. She was explaining it to Lauren and said that when santa brings the robots, they can each have a playmate who is a robot them and they won't fight anymore. Then she said "and when the batteries run out, mommy will just put new ones in! Welllll....maybe" So, do you have the scoop on robot kids? If so, please sharefor right now, my mantra to katherine is "go ahead kid and dream the impossible dream"
This morning, we made gingerbread cookies. We are having our annual cookie decorating party tomorrow afternoon and we're expecting 11 kids. yikes!

Last night, while I was changing the 3rd poopy pull up of the day, I said "Lauren, it would make a great Christmas present for mommy and daddy if you used the potty instead of a pull up". About 20 minutes later she calls me and I follow her little voice into the bathroom where I find her perched on the edge of the potty going poop. She woke up dry this morning and ran to the potty and went 1 & 2 so now she's in big girl panties. She's had two small pee accidents (which really kind of stinks since the dryer is broken and the repairman isn't coming until MONDAY) but no poopie oopsies.

Besides that giant breakthrough, we also went to our Daisy Meeting. One sign that you may be a little too into Project Runway? When you decide that giving 5 & 6 year old kids wrapping paper, tape, ribbons and tinsel and give them 15 minutes to design an outfit. We had a blast.

Katherine is one smart Cookie...maybe a little too smart

Today in the car she says "mom, what happened when Santa was a baby?" I said "hua?" And she said "I guess no one got presents when grandma was little because a baby can't drive a sleigh right?" To which I said "ummm, honey, I think it's a family thing. Santa's dad did the job for a few years, then when Santa Jr. grew up enough, he took over and his kids will take over for him." At the time, I thought this was a pretty clever answer (right up there with "Trolls and Giants only live in Ohio so there is nothing to be afraid of here if Florida) but now I'm convinced that she just stopped asking questions because she didn't want to see me sweat anymore.

Oh, and Ohio people, you can forget about us ever going there again. I don't know why I didn't pick a state where we don't know anyone....like Montana. Ohio was just the first state that popped into my brain.

We are keeping busy with Christmas stuff. I've been a wrapping madwoman, but all of my shopping is DONE! Woody is going to love his gifts and I can't wait to enjoy some time with the girls playing with their new stuff. I got some really cool stuff for them this year. Stuff I used to love like the original colorforms, lite brite and art stuff.

Katheirne has earned her first patch for Daisy's (for learning the girl scout promise) and we are now working on our first petal which is for Honest and Fair from the GS Law. I'm wracking my brain trying to come up with crafts/games...anything to teach honest and fair. any tips?

Lauren is doing ok. She's getting a little sassy lately but she's been doing great about going to sleep like a big girl. That's so nice since it means that Woody and I get an extra hour or so to ourselves each evening.

We have a very busy month with a couple of parties at friends houses, a GS party, carrolling at the Veterens home with the Daisys, my annual cookie decorating party (whould'a ever thought?) and of course Christmas. Mingled in there, my mom and step dad are coming down for her second opinion at Moffit and we will be going to Tallahassee right after Christmas to visit with my Cousin and his famly. It will be a short visit though since we are having a big NYE/Birthday/Anniversary party on NYE. I'm looking forward to having a sleepover with our friends and celebrating such a bunch of stuff.

Great Convo I overheard

Katherine: Dad, are mermaids real?
Woody: Yes, they are real but they are dead people.
Katherine: why are they dead people?
Woody: They just are. They are dead people that....
Me from the other room: MERMAIDS WOODY! Not MUMMIES!
Woody: Oh, no, those are not real.

I then roll my eyse and wonder how scarred my children are going to be from these seemingly insignifigant conversations that we get all wrong because we are busy. Granted, her pronunciation is a little off so she said "muhmehs" but I totally knew what she was saying somehow. I wonder if "fluent in Katherinese" would help if I added it to my resume.

Whoops!

With all of the birthday stuff and surgery for Katherine, I totally forgot to upload the pictures to my webpage for August. It's done now and I also added September photos.

Things are going well around here. The kids are testing us right now but I think we are getting a handle on it. Other than that, we went to Busch Gardens today and it was nice. Katherine is finally tall enough to ride the River Rapids so she went first with Woody then twice more with me. We all got soaked.

She's eating better now too. The dr. who took out her tonsils said "they were huge and chronically infected. She will probably sleep better now and eat better too". Granted, I thought her was nuts but so far, he's right.

We let Spot and Louie go last week. I found a beautiful golden tree frog on our screen and Katherine decided she wanted to have him instead of the lizards. She gave the lizards hugs and kisses and released them into the wild of our front lawn. She's figuring they will stick around and say "hi" occasionally. If I were them, I'd run far far away...quickly! So now we have a golden frog in the terrarium. I hope he eats crickets since that's all the reptile food I have right now.

Katherine is healed and back in school so we are all getting back into our routine. It's so much easier around here with a routine. Everyone, including me, was off of their game for the last few weeks.

We are working on getting Lauren to sleep in her sisters room. So far so bad. It's not going well at all. But, last night I was rocking her and singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. She started whispering it while pretending to be asleep. It was too stinking cute for words.

I may actually miss rocking my babies to sleep. If you'd asked me that two years ago when I was still rocking Katherine to sleep on a regular basis, I'd say you were nuts. Now, there is an ache in my chest when I think of them both going to bed with no help from us.

Oh gag! Retch! Barf!

Katherine is recovering from having her tonsils and adenoids removed. I was cleaning out her room yesterday in preperation for the fall garage sale when I found a sippy under her bed. Figuring it was just a water sippy that fell, I plopped it on the counter to be taken care of later, then I promptly forgot all about it.

This morning, I'm emptying the dishwasher and re loading it with all of the mornings dishes. Part of that job is emptying all of the assorted sippies. I grabbed an innocent looking elmo sippy with a pink sparkley lid and dumped the contents into the sink. Instead of a rush of fluid, it was a solid mass of what I can only assume had been chocolate milk at one point. By the time my brain had processed the above info, the smell hit me and I ran gagging from the kitchen with the water still running in the sink and the stinky clod of funk blocking the drain. I returned shortly with a turtleneck pulled up over my nose and mouth (and sprayed with perfume as an added defense to the stench) and cleaned it all up.

This does not bode well for the rest of the day.

Homework?

This cat LOVES Katherine. She sleeps on her bed, she seeks her out, she follows her into the car....she just adores her. Visa Versa too. Katherine is over the moon and she's being very "sponsible" by feeding Coconut and cleaning her litter box. The cat is also very tolerant of being swaddled and carried around like a baby. I swear any other cat would have clawed open an artery by now but Coconut "gets" K and plays along.

We also have another new addition. Spot and Louie have been having babies over the last month. We have had at least 6 baby lizards of whom; 1 was eaten before my very eyes by Louie (UGH), 5 were released into the wild and 1 is still hanging on in the cage. It's been interesting to learn about lizard life cycles.

Katherine brought home her first homework assignment today. A book chart and a journal to draw and talk about the books she reads. Luckily, grandma Susan bought her a set of beginning reading books for her birthday and Katheirne read two of them to me tonight while I cooked dinner. She did a great job and earned a sticker!

Happy Birthday Baby!

Katherine during her Birthday parachute ride My big girl and Coconut

We've had a great birthday weekend. Katherine is now 5! She's such a wonderful little pixie and I couldn't be prouder of who she's becoming. I know that most of it is all her but I can't help but fill a little bit of satisfaction knowing that I haven't' totally screwed her up....yet.... LOL



We had a princesses and pirates dress up birthday party for her and her closest friends yesterday at the "inside playground". The kids had a blast and Katherine felt like a superstar. She especially liked the bubbles and the ride that everyone gave her on the parachute. She got loads of video games, Barbies and Polly pockets and our playroom is now officially full to the brim.



Grandma Susan, Uncle Mike and Aunt Francoise came down to join in on the festivities as well and we had a nice visit with them too.



Today, we went to see Mr. Willie at our local pizza place. He personally brought over an order of mini zeppoli's (fried pizza dough dusted with powdered sugar like little donuts) with a candle in it for her and he sang happy birthday to her. She adores Mr. Willie and so that was pretty special for her. We were going to run to Super Target to spend some of her birthday money but we stopped by the pet store on the way to replace our sucker fish who has mysteriously disappeared. The shelter was there with kittens for adoption and while we were looking at them and, Woody said "you know, I'd rather get a cat than a dog.". he didn't really mean today but what the hey right? So we welcomed Coconut into our family today. She's a little black and white kitten who tolerates Katherine's snuggles surprisingly well. In fact, she seems to really love K when she's not chasing her. If K sits still, the cat comes up and sits on her lap, gets bundled up in a blanket and passes out. Katherine is over the moon about this cat. Lauren is too but Katherine is seriously out of her mind. The cat was trying to eat and K was telling her what they were going to do next. Woody says "honey, she doesn't speak human" so Katherine gets this funny look on her face, turns around and says "meow meow meow meow" while pantomiming for the cat to follow her. It may have been a "had to be there" moment but OMG was it ever funny.



Oh and that Miss K. She's so responsible! The shelter gives you a video about making your house ready for a cat, how to feed and care for it etc. She watched it like a hawk then got up and did everything it said. Closed all of the toilet lids, made sure the dishwasher, washing machine and drier doors were all closed, brushed the cat etc. Before bed she scooped out the litter box and set out fresh food and water. We will see how long it lasts but she says "it's her sponsibility to keep coconut happy and healthy". Woody said that if she keeps that up she may actually get a dog.



On a rather sad note, she was kind of bummed when we said we'd need to get rid of Bambi and Wiggles. We have a neighbor family who are interested in taking them and if they decide against it, I'm thinking that I'll be able to talk our pet sitter into it. She really loves them. So far Coconut hasn't bothered them but I'd hate to come home to rat carnage. That just sounds gross.



I think that's all I was going to write about so goodnight for now!