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.

Dixie update

By the way, Dixie is doing great. The kids LOVE her and have never gotten so many timeouts since she arrived. (They have to be reminded a LOT not to chase her and grab her.) To their defense, they've never had an animal that they can just go up to and pick up. That charm hasn't worn off yet.

Every day when we get home, Dixie comes to greet us within minutes. She's a sweet, great addition to our family. Even her and Sasha are doing okay together. She likes the kids a lot and lets them pick her up, carry her around, etc. We're just trying to teach them early on to be nice so she'll like them in the long run, too.

Juggling the homefront

Steve's gone this weekend. We miss him, but we do okay. Saturday we wen to the zoo and then today we hit the apple farm for about the 4th time this year. We LOVE apples in our house, and the apples at the store just can't compete with the ones you can pick yourself.

I'm doing this pre-holiday fitness challenge with some family. You know, instead of getting on the big fitness kick after the holidays, we're going to try to lose a little weight now so we don't have to feel guilty at the holidays.

Anyway, I get this bright idea this afternoon to get a quick workout in on the elliptical downstairs while both kids were awake. I set them up with popcorn, water and some TV. Should be smooth sailing, right? Uh-uh, sure. Kids have this radar that goes off when they know you're in a helpless position. They did okay at first, but then both ended up spilling their popcorn everywhere. In my best panting/threatening voice, I threaten them with something. They won't get to go to the park or something if they don't clean up that popcorn.

I bet they were laughing at me on the inside. "Hehehe. Go ahead, Mom. Get off of that thing and make us!"

After I finally finished my workout, I got off and "made" Jack go and get his little vacuum. The joke was kind of on me, though, because he thought that was great fun.

And one more makes...

EIGHT! We're now a family of 8. I've been talking on and off about getting another cat. Then this summer Steve made the mistake of saying we could get another cat if I REALLY wanted to. There's this great adoption place in town that saves the animals from animal control. On Monday, we went to look at this little kitten, and she was NOT a big fan of the kids. She was sweet but shy and we were way too rambunctious for her. But while we were there, there was this other cat who was desperate to get out to say hello. When they let her out, she strutted all over the room and even let Jack and Annabelle pick her up. We were hooked!

Five days later, we became the proud owners of Dixie. (The name is a tribute to the Dixie in Brisco County for anyone interested.) We figured we already have three animals, so really, what's one more?

She's beautiful, sweet and the kids LOVE her. Sasha (our other cat) would never willingly be in the same area as the kids, and even our dogs don't choose to interact with the kids unless there's food involved. I don't think we could have found a better fit. Dixie is roughly 1 and is tolerant of everything. So it's only our second day, but so far, we're very happy. Here are some pictures...

"We don't say come here, Daddy! We just say teddy bear."

Yes, this phrase also puzzled us when Jack said it. Huh? Are the kids abusing the phrase "come here" at school? We quizzed Jack for a while, thinking we'd get the real answer out of him but no dice. He was very certain that Miss Molly told them that they can't say come here. They can only say teddy bear instead.

So finally I remembered to ask Molly about it this week. "Are the kids not allowed to say come here?" I asked. "They can only say teddy bear?"

Molly laughed. "Well come here isn't the thing they can't say," she told me. "It's for the child here that swears. Instead of swearing, we try to get the child to say other silly words like teddy bear."

Ahhh, it all makes sense now. Yes, there's a 3-year-old in Jack's room that swears. He's been known to drop the f bomb...call teachers bxxxx...and finally, throw around "shit!" In fact, Jack was very eager to tell us about it last week. "Mommy, Billy says shit but we don't say shit. Right Mommy? We don't say shit, but that's what Billy says. He says shit."

This conversation happened at Target. :)

Naughty Mickey

As most know, we're big Disney fans in our house. The kids even own Disney stock, so please, spend all you can to ensure the domination of "The Mouse."

Anna's favorite show is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, which is a modern take on the Mickey cartoons. And while it is a modern take, I can't help but point out that the show is still kind of sexist overall. First of all, Minnie and Daisy are always wearing dresses, high heels and bows. Come on! Where are the jeans? Furthermore, the males are always the ones who are solving the problems and going out on the quests to fix problems.

This brings me up to the whole point of this posting...naughty Mickey. So in this one episode (Goofy's Petting Zoo), the boys are all out looking for the animals that Goofy lost. He was napping on the job, and the animals escaped. They finally find the last animal, which is a baby elephant. And guess where the baby elephant is? Sitting up in a tree. (Yeah, the logic of a kids show!) Anyway, the boys decide they have this brilliant idea to shake peanuts at the baby elephant to bribe it down the tree. So they all stand at the bottom of the tree and start singing "Shake, shake, shake, your peanut. Baby elephant, come down the tree. Shake, shake, shake your peanut. Baby elephant, come home with me."

Now while they're singing this, Mickey, Goofy and Donald are doing an Elvis-like hip gyration. And they are emphasizing the "Peeeeeeeeee" part of peanut. Think about it. The boys, hip gyration, shaking their pe....

Now you can tell me those Disney people didn't have themselves a little laugh as they were writing that episode.

I am a bad mother

So Steve is gone this week to a computer training class. It's just me and the kids. Actually, it's kind of relaxing when it's just the kids and and me. Not that Steve isn't relaxing, but when it's just me, I tend to relax because I know there's no one to lean on. I don't need a man!

Well tonight, I learned that I'm not as confident as I thought. I put Anna to bed, and about half an hour later, she's giving me trouble. Trouble as in, she's not sleeping. She's been teething lately, so we never know whether we'll get a full night of sleep. (And you think you're all done with that after they're newborns!) I think all four of Anna's canine teeth...you know the pointed ones...are coming in at once.

So she's giving me trouble tonight, and I'm semi-frustrated. Okay, I'm definitely frustrated. After multiple trips into her room, she still won't go to sleep. I even tried rubbing her gums with the teething "magic" ointment, which really isn't so magical.

As I went in a couple of times, I'm thinking...ewww, something stinks! I even took out her favorite blanket because I thought it was the source of the stench. The last time I went in there, I was holding her when I decided it was her pajamas that smelled. I took them off, and all of the sudden, it hit me. She had a poopie diaper. I felt awful as I changed it. She had a really red little bottom. I loaded her up with diaper ointment, and asked her if she felt better. With these big, soulful eyes, she nodded and said, "Yeah." I laid her down and haven't heard a peep since then.

Poor kiddo with the bad mommy. I guess Steve is good for something after all.

I can just see Anna tomorrow at day care, comparing "bad mother" stories with the other kids.

Trip to the Farm

My mom came for a visit in August, and one of the highlights of our trip was going to the farm. I thought I would share a few pictures of our adventures. We saw plenty of "real" farm animals, but our favorite by far were the the cats. Yes, that is a picture of my sweet little girl, having a time out on the farm.