Oh where, oh where has my Amber gone?

My talented writing friend, Amber, is MIA. (Missing in Action). Where could she be? Doesn't she know that if I go too many days without my Amber dose that I start to get cranky?

Do I need to start busting out high school stories to get her to talk? Don't challenge me. I'll do it!

We are weak

Steve and I have NO patience when it comes to gift giving. Before we had kids, we would always break down and have all of our presents open before Christmas Day. Birthdays are pretty bad, too. One of us needs to be strong in these kind of situations, but sadly, we are both weak.

For instance, this past weekend, I got Steve this really great coat for his birthday next month. I decided that he needed to have it to wear, so I gave it to him right away. Then today, I figured he should get an ITouch for his birthday/Christmas big present, so I ordered it and then told him about it. I even told him what I had engraved on the back. For the record, he'll be in London on his birthday, and I wanted him to have it to be able to take on the plane for watching movies.

So today, Steve informs me that my Christmas gift from the kids arrived at his office. He sent it there so I couldn't snoop. And believe me, I would. He brought it home and then with very little prodding, he said that Jack could decide if I could have my present early. Of course, my little man said yes!

Here's my lovely, wonderful present from my adorable husband. It's a Mom necklace with Jack and Anna's birthstones in little baby booties. And on the bottom of the booties, their names and birthdays are engraved. I thought I was going to cry, and I'm not really a sentimental kind of crier! So, we might not have any patience, but I have a fabulous necklace and he'll be enjoying plenty of movies on his way to London. If that's not a Merry Christmas, then I don't know what is!

Thanksgiving Round-Up

We had a great Thanksgiving. We celebrated Anna's birthday on Thanksgiving. (She turned 2 on the 21st.) We had a Curious George theme going, complete with streamers and balloons. Both kids were pretty excited about it. Now all Jack can talk about is how it's HIS birthday next. Yesterday, I tried to tell him that his Dad's birthday was coming up in a couple of weeks. He seemed pretty upset by that idea. "But Mommy! You said mine would be next!"

I took the easy way out an ordered a turkey breast from the local grocery store. (For the record, I can do the whole turkey thing. I just wanted to have more party time, and it was SO worth it.) I went and picked it up Thursday morning, and then popped it in the oven. Come lunch time, we just took it out and sliced it up in less than 5 minutes. Wooohooo!

Anna got some great presents. Curious George clothes, pajamas and slippers from Grandma Vicki and then a big pop-up Dora the explorer playhouse from my mom. Grandpa Steve send this really cool wooden sled. Jack got her Curious George shoes. Uncle Scott and Aunt Maggie got her an awesome dancing Mickey Mouse that plays Hot Dog. And then we got her a realistic baby doll that just happened to be named Baby Annabelle. (Actually, I scouted out the dolls and deliberately chose this one because of the name. Sure it cost about twice the other dolls, but how cute is it that they had the same name?!? Yeah, I'm a sucker!) She did love her doll. Though, at one point she kicked it out of its stroller and took its pacifier. (See the photos.)

It really was a great birthday and Thanksgiving. When Anna was opening her presents, she would do this gasp thing. Her mouth would be open in disbelief and her hands were out, shaking in excitement.

After presents, we attempted to bust open a monkey pinata. At the time, it was pretty chaotic. All the kids wanted to whack it repeatedly. Anna and Alex were both crying in between their turns. Meanwhile, we were just trying to keep them from smacking people in the head. In the end, Steve had to cut open the pinata with a knife and we pretended that Jack actually busted it open.

On Black Friday, Vicki and I woke up at 3:30 a.m. to go to the stores for some deals. We were doubting ourselves around 3:35, but five hours later, we were actually pretty pleased with our deals. We only hit three stores during that time...Kohls, Target and Toys R Us, but it was fun. At Kohls (they opened at 4), we got our stuff and then stood in a line that wrapped completely around the store. We waited in line for about 45 minutes, but we found plenty of good deals along the way! It was fun.

So a good weekend at the Tornio household. I'm looking forward to hearing about other Thanksgiving happenings. For your viewing pleasure, I put together a photo slideshow from Anna's birthday. And, I'm also putting on the little video I got of the pinata fun. You might want to watch it a couple of times to truly appreciate it. The crying in the background is coming from Anna and Alex as they're having to wait their turn. And at some point, while Vicki is trying to contain Anna, she knocks her Grandma down!

Link to pinata video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Akz3v8clK8

Slideshow...

Pany days

This weekend we went horseback riding. A very nice guy I work with has ponies, and he graciously invited us over. Both of the kids loved riding the horses...and feeding them. Anna even learned why you shouldn't stick your fingers up near a horses mouth. She was fine, but just a lesson learned. These were the best ponies. The one the kids rode used to be at this place where they teach kids how to ride, so it was very nice and gentle. Here are some pictures of our adventure.

Oh, the things that kids say...

We've started a family blog with Steve's family, so now some of my posts will be on both the family site and then again on the Tornio site. I have this great Jack story that I've been telling to everyone, so I'm finally sharing it on the blog. This summer, we went to this working farm while my mom was visiting. While there, we held baby ducks, milked the cow, rode on the hay wagon, etc. Well, we have this little video of our farm trip, and the kids love to watch it. We were watching it the other day and it was about to come up on the part where Jack is milking the cow. Jack gets all excited and turns to Anna to say, "Anna. You want to watch me pee that cow?"

Ha! It still cracks me up every time I think about it.

I've been starting to think about Christmas shopping. I've actually done some good shopping already. The closer it gets to Christmas, the more I love the idea of shopping online. I do, however, have this weird desire to hit this after-Thanksgiving sale at the outlet mall down in Pleasant Prairie. They have a "Midnight Madness" sale, and even though I can't think of the last time I was up past midnight, I'm oddly drawn to the idea of going out at midnight after Thanksgiving. They have this giveaway where they're giving bags to the first 500 people. Five of the bags will have $500 shopping sprees and one bag will have a $1,000 shopping spree. Those are definitely better odds than the lottery! And they have giveaways for gift cards every hour. I'm a sucker for that kind of giveaway stuff. So I'm not sure that I'll actually do it, but I'm considering it. Are there any other crazy people out there who want to come to the Milwaukee area to shop at midnight? (I know, most people are actually sane enough to lay low on Black Friday.)

FYI...

My dear friend Amber made the mistake of letting me know she can’t stomach the thought of putting cute little symbols or acronyms in her messages. Something about making her feel like she was 13 or something.
So Am, just for kicks, this posting is for you. ☺
Daylight savings time really threw us for a loop this weekend. And not in a good way. ☹
Steve’s day on Sunday (it was his turn to get up) started around 4 a.m. on the new time. WWTT! (What were they thinking!) FWIW (For what it’s worth), I was up a couple hours later, and it was clear that this was going to be a long morning until nap IYKWIM (If you know what I mean).
We watched some Shrek and did some playing, and then I decided to let the kids help me make bread to go with the beef and vegetable soup we were making for lataer. Yeah, WWIT (What was I thinking)? Actually, we had a lot of fun. They loved pounding the bread, using the rolling pin and dipping their hands in flour. By the end, they were LOL (Laughing out loud).
Later, they decided they needed to get decked out in their rain boots, sunglasses, hats and backpacks. I think they were planning an escape. HHJK (Ha ha, just kidding).
I got some pics (pictures) that I will share later. AW (Anyway), that’s all I’ve got for now ASAIK (As far as I know). Keep your FC (Fingers crossed) for more good stories later on. ☺

SYL (See you later).
TTFN (Ta ta for now).
BBS (Be back soon).
YCBNYH (Ya’ll come back now, ya hear)?

Okay I made that last one up. ☺

Later!

Slacker

Yep, I'm a slacker on the posts lately. I've been busy with all kinds of stuff. For some reason, I decided to take on the responsibility of organizing a family cookbook, so that took up a lot of time. Then I'm supposed to be giving a workshop to teachers in December in Tulsa about writing. I've been working on my presentation lately for that, too.

And then I've also been reworking a children's story that a publisher has shown some *slight* interest in. I don't want to get too excited, but I am trying to do some work on it now before the person interested leaves or something. :)

Just a quick Jack and Anna story. Almost every morning, Steve and the kids call me on their way to daycare. Steve has a fancy car where the phone hooks up to the stereo system, so when they call me, it's like I'm on this massive speaker phone. Every morning, Jack says..."Hi Mommy. I'm not going to have an accident at school today." And then he says, "You gonna pick me up Mommy?" All the while, Anna's in the background, saying "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" It's like she can't believe it's me.

It's pretty much the favorite part of my day (except for picking them up and they run up to me to give me huge hugs).

One more quick story. We go to this music class as a family on Thursday nights. Anna's favorite thing to do is....not singing, not dancing, not playing instruments. She likes spinning. Yep. Spinning around and around and around until she gets so dizzy that she falls and starts giggling. She's hilarious.

Okay, that's enough for tonight! Later.

Halloween weekend

Good morning! We had a great Halloween weekend. Greenfield had their trick-or-treating yesterday from 4 until 7. We went over to this little neighborhood we often visit because they have a nice park in there. It was great. At first, Jack was just in amazement that all you had to do is say "trick or treat" and then people give you candy! He kept saying, "Let's go to the that house! Now that house!"

By the end, Steve and I were both carrying the kids from house to house. Anna's little bag was pretty heavy and she started dragging it a bit. I offered to carry it, but no way! Here are some pictures from the weekend and a few older ones from this fall. It's a photo album and scrolls through automatically. If you want to see the images bigger, you can click on it to go to Google's picasa.

Happy Birthday to Ash!

Here's a little birthday tribute to my good friend, Ashley. May you have a great day, free of stress and full of love. I'm glad you don't have a drinking problem.

Quick Update

I've been seriously lacking in the posts, so I'm throwing out a quick one this morning. Last night, I made cookies for the cake walk at Jack and Anna's day care. They do a little party every year, which is tonight. We can't go, but I still made cookies to contribute to the cake walk prizes. Yeah, I'm one of those mom overachievers. :)

This morning, I decided that Anna and Jack could just eat cookies and milk for breakfast. I know it's not that healthy, but it's fun to have those crazy mornings every once in a while. I think Jack thought something was up. He would say, "I can have another cookie Mommy?" At one point, he even looked at me and said, "But if I have another cookies, then...."

He couldn't quite finish his thought. He must have been thinking in mom terms or something because it was just too good to be true! Since I wasn't stopping him, he must have thought he needed to stop himself.

Tomorrow we're heading up to Steve's moms. Along with Grandma, Grandpa and Steve's brother's family, we're all dressing up and going to a little kids Halloween party tomorrow night. Actually, most people are dressing up. Steve is going to wear a "funny hat" and thinks that counts. Jack and Anna are going at Mickey and Minnie, and they're pretty excited. As for me...Quack, Quack Baby! I'll be Donald Duck. Big white rump and all! (I was actually supposed to be Daisy Duck, but they sent Donald instead. It was just so cute that I decided not to return it.) Don't worry, I'm not too proud that I won't post pictures!

That's it for now. For my fellow blog friends out there, keep writing. I check your blogs every day. It's one of my best sources of entertainment!

A proud mom...

I am so proud. I'm just ecstatic. Dixie, our wonderful new cat, killed a mouse!!! That's right folks. Jack, Annabelle and I were on on way downstairs when I spotted a dead mouse at the bottom of the steps. Anna is riding on my back at this point, and Jack is walking down the steps by himself. I see the mouse and tell everyone to hold on because I have to get the mouse. (I did nudge it with my foot first just to make sure it wasn't playing dead.)

Now I should mention that I HATE mice. I know they are small and do no harm and blah, blah, blah, but I don't care. They make me shiver in disgust. Just the thought of a mouse in the house makes me want to move.

So I called Steve (who's at a class in Illinois this week) and proudly report on Dixie's killer instinct. The conversation went like this...

"Dixie got a mouse! So there! What did your cat ever do?"
"Really? She got a mouse?" Steve asks. "Good for her."
"Yeah! So there," I say.
"Did you put it in a plastic bag and put it out with the garbage?"

This makes me laugh.

"Are you kidding me? I flushed it!"
"Why did you flush it?" Steve asks.
"Hey! It was smaller than poop. Don't give me a hard time for flushing it! I was balancing Annabelle on my back during this whole time!"

Steve repeats something about how I shouldn't have flushed it, but whatever. Out of sight, out of mind. I feel so safe in my house now with my big bad cat! I'm still grossed out by the whole mouse thing, but at least I know I have a cat in shining armor to come to my rescue. Dixie is awesome.

Cross Your Fingers...

We've had a bit of stomach bug in the Tornio household. I was home with Jack on Friday who had a very hard time keeping food down. Then it looks like he passed it to Annabelle over the weekend because today, she kept pointing at her stomach and saying in this sweet, adorable voice..."belly hurt, belly hurt, belly hurt."

She finally threw up a little bit later. Steve was pretty proud of himself because he saw her convulsing and got her to the bathroom right away. She threw up on him the first time and then in the toilet for the rest. After the ordeal, he proudly handed her over to me, happy with the fact that she hardly had a drop on her. Now that's a good dad, taking one for the team. :)

On another topic, anyone who knows me also knows that I'm a notorious planner. This drives some people crazy, I know, but that's just the way I am. If it were up to me, I'd have Christmas '08 nicely planned out already. Anyway, Anna's birthday is a little over a month away. I felt a little bad because last year, we rolled her 1st birthday into Halloween weekend so that Steve's family could make it. It was a lot of fun, but it wasn't just an Anna day. (As someone who has a birthday in early January, I'm sensitive to birthdays around holidays. By early Jan., everyone is already worn out from Christmas.) So anyway, this year Anna's birthday is the day before Thanksgiving. We're going to have her a birthday party on Thanksgiving. I think we'll be able to meld that holiday in nicely with her birthday. She's a big fan of turkey, too, so it works out perfectly. We're having a Curious George theme. She loves George. Oh, and for any grandmas or others out there, we're getting her a realistic baby doll and a baby stroller.

I love fall. Cross your fingers that we're done with the sickness. I can't take off any more days from work!

Tribute to Columbus

So in honor of this lame holiday, we spend our Columbus Day at the zoo! Steve left for Seattle this morning so it was just the kids and me hanging out. As we got ready to go, Annabelle had to put on a whole zoo attire, complete with her horsey purse and Little Mermaid hat. She's really a cutie (of course I have to say that as the mom) with her soft rolling curls. Her hair is really getting long now. We used to have to always put it back so it wouldn't get in her eyes, but now she's almost at the point where she can tuck it behind her ear.

To be fair, I had to include a photo of Jack from the zoo in here, too. His favorite animal is the giraffe, but I didn't have the camera going at that point, so you get to see this lam-o picture of a swan instead.

Bow Zone

We have finally entered the bow zone in our house, thanks to my very talented friend, Amber. She's whips out the best bows. She made a couple for Anna...one is this fabulous football bow to match her Peyton Manning jersey.

Anna was pretty proud of it this morning. She's notorious for ripping things out of her hair so we'll see how long this will make it. Maybe she's so proud of it that she'll just wear it gleefully all day.

Thanks Amber!

Crafty Mom

I admit. I'm not exactly the craftiest mom in the world. I can think of some good ideas, but I'm just no good at anything that involves detailed cutting, sewing, drawing, etc. Whoever knows my mom will find this very hard to believe. She's the kind of woman who can whip out a contest-winning Halloween costume in 1 hour. Or she's like that MaGyver guy who can fix anything with 2 paper clips and some chewing gum. How did I miss getting these wonderful skills of hers? Who knows.

Anyway, Jack and I are very proud of our little pumpkin creation here. Sure it's not some crazy detailed carving, but look at us! Wooohooo! Take that all you crafty moms out there. We used different colored leaves, some pine needles and mums for the rosy cheeks. We stuck them on with double-sided tape, and Jack had a blast doing them.