The dog ate WHAT???

I'm so glad that I took a photo of the handprint ornament that we made for Dominic because very shortly after the photo was taken, the ornament disappeared. My first reaction was to question Dominic. He's known to leave things in odd places so I wanted to get it out of him while he still remembered where he may have put it. Not one to know to lie his way out of trouble yet, he told me that he in fact did NOT touch the ornament.

After asking hubby about it's whereabouts and getting the same answer that only leaves one more option: the dog! That dirty ol' dog must have thought it was a tasty treat just sitting out in the open like that and decided to make off with it in the midst of the night! Scoundrel!

Now we have to make another one!

I also had an impromptu photo shoot with the babes the other day. I made my mom a card using the photos:

What do you think???

We are having 5 of Dominic's close friends over Friday night for a special viewing of Elf in anticipation of the holidays! I put together a salt dough ornament mix for each family to take home and will be including an x-mas cookie cutter with it, too. We'll have all kinds of Christmas snacks and we're so excited to see everyone. I'll be sure to post pics of all the fun!

A lazy day for reflection

Today is a chilly 33* here. Little man is down with a low-grade fever and little lady is napping all bundled up in a cozy warm blanket. It's a lazy day all around. A perfect opportunity to reflect on the upcoming holiday season.

I realized that I've been pretty introverted the last couple of weeks. Not really sure why, but I think it has to do with the fact that we had 30+ guests here for Thanksgiving and I was in full on hostess mode.

I really need to get back in the friendship saddle. Christmas is the perfect excuse to get back in the swing of things. Here's some things I have planned to help me re-focus:

**Attend any and all holiday parties that we are invited to.

**Make and deliver gifts for all of our friends and/or neighbors. Any ideas???

**Offer to help friends with wrapping gifts. Perhaps have a mom's night out where we have a wrapping party?

**Like last year I plan to have some of Dominic's closest friends over for a pre-Christmas party. Last year we exchanged favorite Christmas stories. This year I'm thinking we'll get the outdoors heater out, strike up the chimenea and roast marshmallows while we huddle together under blankets watching Elf on the garage door. (We have a projector that has yet to be used.)

That's all I've thought of so far. Any traditions that you guys do with friends that you'd like to share? Leave me a comment!

On another note, we made salt dough ornaments yesterday and painted them this morning. It was a super fun activity! We made ornaments for each of the kids, one for each of his cousins and one for his bestie, Andrew.

Here's the recipe for the salt dough:
1/2 cup salt
1 cup flour
1/2 cup water
Mix all ingredients together until it forms a dough. Roll out on floured surface with a floured rolling pin. Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes. Bake in oven for 2 hours at 250*F.

So, the Longhorns really mussed it up big time for the OU game. Yuk! We are rebounding from the game and hubby has pretty much written them off for the next two seasons.

I've had a bit of time to reflect on our activities from last month up to now and it's more than I had thought it was. We've been so sick for so long that it really didn't seem like we'd done much of anything. So, in this post I'll post one photo from each playdate we've had recently. Here we go...

Our back to school neighborhood playdate. I made these stickers and put them on mini M&M packs.

The arboretum has their huge pumpkin patch open. We had a picnic.

My attempt at getting 2 kids in 1 photo.

Getting friendly at a hot air balloon festival.

We went to the international airport to an outdoors plaza to watch the incoming planes. VERY cool!

A make your own ice cream playdate. Yes, another one!

We were invited to a local high school football game. Dominic loved the noise and we stayed for the halftime show.

We checked out the zoo.

Did the Oktoberfest thing...

Visited the state fair.

And started soccer lessons!!!

All of these activities was with friends and/or playgroups. Pretty busy despite pneumonia, huh??

Avast me hearties!

Since Dominic is totally obsessed with pirates lately I have been doing some research to have a perfect pirate party for his 3rd birthday next month. I can't believe it's already birthday time again!!

I've come up with some fun stuff for this fun theme. The invites are out and I must say, they are simply adorable!

I bought a four pack of Sutter Home mini-wine at the grocery store. In case you are wondering, the four mini bottles make one full wine bottle. Good for the hubster, no?

I took the labels off and added my own, complete with a personalized pirate name for each guest.

I used construction paper to make the treasure map insert. I charted each guest's course on their invite and included a cute pirate code for the details. I rolled them up, tied with raffia and dropped them in the bottle for delivery. All in all, I am very pleased.

Next craft: favor bags. I used the crayola studio website to create a personalized pirate coloring book. I'll include a small pack of crayons, too.

I have been wanting to make the next craft for about a month now and was so happy to be able to adapt it to my pirate theme.

What is it, you may ask? It's a spyglass, edu-ma-cational style! I bought a bottle (plastic) of dragees and emptied it into a ziploc bag for future use and filled the bottle with rice about halfway up. I bought some alphabet beads (in the jewelry making section at Mike's) and put all 26 letters in and then added more rice. I superglued the top on and wrote the alphabet along the rim of the lid.

This will be a great quiet game for the kids to play with whenever the need presents itself. Think long car rides, waiting room trips, church, you name it! The kids have to rotate the bottle this way and that to find all 26 letters. I will also be making some bingo-type cards that they can use to find certain letters. Cute idea, huh? I figure they can be presented as a pirate spyglass.

I know I'll have more posts about our pirate party the closer and closer we get to the party, so stay tuned!

It's no Blue Bell, but it'll do...

This past week we were BUSY!!

Since Dominic enjoyed camp so much, we decided to pony up and enroll him in another two week session, which started last Tuesday. This time around there were 12 kids in his group! I am assuming they have combined two groups since there are 2 counselors in there.

When we weren't at camp, we were at playgroups. Monday we hosted a playgroup at our house. Kids were invited to make homemade ice cream, which actually turned out to be quite delicious!

Fattening, but delicious! While we waited for the ice cream to freeze we moved out front and ran through the sprinkler!

Our new church friends joined us for this one. She is due with baby girl #3 anyday now. Note to self: I should check in on her since I didn't see them at church yesterday.

The next day we had AM and M over for some ice cream and playtime.

The next two days I was saddled down with creating the neighborhood playgroup's newsletter. Big doings!! This took approximately 3 days to get all together but the third day was simply copy-paste'ing.

Friday we had a full day all to ourselves. Until I remembered that I had to buy my hubby a birthday present! So it was off to the golf store to pick up a fashionable golfing outfit, complete with golfing belt. I never knew such a thing existed, but trust me it does.

Friday afternoon we were invited over to H and E's house for indoor play. It was just nice to get out of the house after the whole newsletter stress. I even managed to get a photo of myself with BOTH babies!! As I've said in previous posts, photos of me with the kids is rare as I'm usually the one taking the photo. I just love this one, too!!

Saturday Daddy turned "4-4" and Jillian turned 2 months old!

Due Date!!

Today is my original EDD and Jillian is now 15 days old. We had our 2 week check-up yesterday morning and were shocked and thrilled to discover that she is now over 5 pounds! She has grown 2" and is doing great! I have designed her birth announcement and just need to print them out and get them in the mail. I would share one here, but it's got information that I don't want to post in a public place. You understand, I know...

Dominic has been warming up to his sister little by little. He loves to stroke her soft hair and hold her tiny hand. He repeats, "I think she likes me." It is really very sweet. Just look how proud he is:

We are starting to get into somewhat of a routine. The doctor recommended that we stay away from any playdates for another two weeks, but we are okay to have private playdates. This week we are meeting my friend, S and her daughter B, at the outlet mall to buy Little Miss some clothes. She only has 7 outfits that fit properly. Her NB clothing will probably start fitting better in a few more weeks if she continues growing like this.

I contacted a former LLL buddy via Yahoo Groups and we are planning to get the kids together next week sometime. She has a daughter who is a little older than D and she just had a son a few weeks before Jillian so we have two sets of kids close in age. Of course, Dominic has fallen in love with her oldest daughter, who talked with him at church one Sunday, thus earning a spot on his "cool list". Her "flashing" shoes helped her rise to the tippy top of the list.

Aaaaaa-Men!

This past week we've had a silent visitor in our home. He has watched over us as we slept, played, eaten and conversed. Silently overseeing our daily routine and blessing us at every turn, he stood stoically on our mantle.

Since my husband was out of town on a church retreat I was happy to have him here. I was comforted knowing that a visual symbol of him was present in my home. Dominic and I prayed the prayer of vocations daily while David was away and once he returned home the boys continued the ritual before bedtime each night. I love that I was able to capture them in prayer before the chalice.

I love to see Dominic join his hands in prayer. There's just something about seeing such an innocent soul paying homage to our Lord that makes me smile. His joyful proclamation "Aaaaaa-Men!" at the conclusion to any prayer makes my heart burst with pride. How will I ever survive his first holy communion?

In separate, but strangely connected news, I have a lunch date with one of my meetup pals tomorrow. She has been the subject of one of my previous posts: the one about Laura Ingalls?? Anyway, she is Jewish and we are, obviously, Catholic. The interesting thing about her is that she is a practicing Jew, not just Jewish by title. As a practicing Catholic I know all too well the distinction between title and action.

I'd love to talk religion with her but I'm not quite sure how it would go over. I am actually fascinated with Judaism. Afterall, Jesus was a Jew himself. I am intrigued by the traditions held by the Jewish people. It's certainly not easy to be Jewish, just as being Catholic is not exactly the easiest religion to "adhere to".

Oh well, this is really just a rambling post about religion that somehow worked it's way into my brain and wanted to come out and play. I'll let you know how the "lunch date" goes!

Enjoying the view???

Here's my view today...can you guess what we've been up to??

This week we participated in one of the coolest playdates thus far: Vincent VanGogh's birthday celebration. Each toddler was provided with a canvas, paint, paintbrushes and sunflower cutouts. A classic VanGogh piece was on display and the tots were instructed to make their own. There were 5 of us in attendance and all 5 did something different! I have to brag and say that D was the ONLY tot to do the WHOLE thing on his own. He pointed out where to put the sunflowers and I glued them down. Here is his:



Pretty impressive, huh? I think this kid's got the artistic gene in him yet.

This week we also witnessed the "supermoon". Daddy and D make it an event to go out and say goodnight to the moon as often as possible and I was able to catch this sweet moment the other night:



I pinkie swear that the next post will be all about my Spring Camp. I have 3 of the 6 shirts made and ready to post.

Tonight it's off to the fish fry. We are meeting two other couples and their tots so that should be a lot of fun for all involved!!!

Happy Friday, everyone!!

blink*blink*blink*

Not really sure where this post will take me, but haven't posted in almost a week, so here we are....

This week we had another ultrasound and got to see little Miss again. She has been a good girl and is no longer sitting breech, but is now head down!! YAY!
I took, and passed, my glucose test. YAY!!
Ladybug's room is coming right along. The closet is finished, girly clothes are hanging up, pictures are up on the wall...only a few more touches and the room is ready for it's official reveal. YAY!!

I will share the link to one of the items I made specifically for the room. I saw this cute little butterfly mobile:



over at PBK and swooned. Then I saw the price and swooned again, I mean it's just paper and string. I resolved to make my own. And so I did. I must say, I did a pretty good job. AND I got to customize mine to match the room!

D has been sleeping like a champ and eating like a horse lately. I KNEW he was getting longer so we measured him yesterday and he's grown an inch and a half since his birthday 6 months ago! He's pretty proud of himself.

We made a chocolate cake for L's birthday and delivered it to her this afternoon. A was just waking from his nap so the boys got an impromptu playdate while L and I chatted. She is expecting in May so our little ones will only be 3 weeks apart (depending on the EDD). It's so nice to have some friends going through the same stage in life at the same time.

Sunday we were invited over to K and G's house after Mass for a pancake breakfast. G picked at her pancakes while D snarfed down 2+!!!
D wasn't too impressed with G's little brother, A. He liked to look at him sleeping but didn't really pay too much attention to him once he was awake. Ah, well....

We met them on Tuesday morning for some toddler fun at the local arboretum. I didn't get too many pictures as D was all over the place! The kindermusik people were there and D had fun dancing around with the big kids. I did manage to snap a picture of D and G sitting in the little mermaid's enchanted chair. Cute!

***Photos will follow shortly, my camera battery is dead and I'm too lazy to deal with it right now. I'm all cuddled up in bed with one eye on the monitor. There was a loud truck that just drove by and startled D so I was expecting him to call for me, but he didn't. What a brave boy!

BTW, my Lenten "project" has been going very nicely. I realize as I'm reading the book that I haven't really been too bad about taking my hubby for granted. We still seem to have the newlywed thing going for us.

What a difference a week makes!

So it's been about a week since it's snowed here. Actually last week it DID snow here. Yesterday we were invited to a picnic at the Arboretum with some of the neighborhood gals. There were about 6 of us who went. It was a great impromptu get together and we've discussed making it a standing Tuesday event to get the kids together (and socialize as mommies, too).

Of the 6 of us, 2 have recent babies and older sibs, 3 of us are pg with #2, and one is done with kiddos for now. This is a great support group for us mommies who are starting all over again with a newborn.

We were actually able to fly a kite!! The weather was AWESOME!! Here's D and I in action; you can really see my baby bump popping out!




The Valentine's party was pretty cute, not a whole lot to do, but they did have a bouncehouse which kept D busy. He also made Daddy a valentine's card and was so proud of himself! I should really take a photo of it for my Project Life book.

Mommy has Bunco tonight so Dominic and Daddy will have a guy's night tonight. I'm so glad they get to spend some time together, just the boys. Maybe they will work on sister's closet some more. They're really close to finishing, they just have to nail in the shelves and get the rods up. Then I can start hanging up all those tiny little clothes and the reality of a little girl may start to sink in finally.

Anybody home???

I promise we are still alive and well. I'm going to try to keep up this month with our busy life. We've already had quite a bit going on!

I received a new Project Life kit for Christmas and have been plugging away, taking a photo each day to display in the album. My album from last year is only lacking 4 pictures! Not too bad for a busy mom, huh? If you want to see what the fuss is all about, check out the Project Life kit here: www.beckyhiggins.com

Today we don't have a scheduled playdate however O is coming over to play and enjoy a custom-made firetruck cookie. D asked for one earlier and I promised him we could make cookies after his nap.

We got a cool firetruck cookie cutter from Aunt Suge for Christmas so we put it to use today. I'll post pictures of the cookies later, they are in the oven, smelling the house up real nicely!!

Other big news?? We find out pink or blue in just 4 more days!!! I still can't believe that we are already almost halfway through this pregnancy! I am 19w, 2d today. Wow!!

I am planning on doing a cute photoshoot with D sometime tomorrow so I'll post pictures of what I'm able to capture.

Thanks for hanging in with me!!

Only 52 more sleeps...

until Christmas, according to Santa's Official Christmas Clock!!!

I feel bad for Thanksgiving. It gets smooshed in between two kids holidays and it really deserves it's own time to shine. We went to the bookstore today to look for our camping titles and the stores are already all dolled up for Christmas! What happened to Thanksgiving?

My husband's family has a BIG family Thanksgiving every year and I just love it! He has such a great family (and I'm not just saying that b/c my MIL reads this blog every once in a while). The first Thanksgiving that I was a part of their festivities they just welcomed me in and chatted me up as if they'd known me all along. I LOVE that Dominic gets to experience the family Thanksgiving. They've been doing it for YEARS!!

So....I am going to let November do it's own thing this year. No more rushing it to hurry by so that Santa can be on his merry way. Each day in November I will mentally take the time to be thankful for the blessings in my life-and I have many. Lucky me!!

When I taught school I would have my middle schoolers keep a daily journal for the month of November. Every night they would list 3 things that they were thankful for that day. Think it sounds easy? The twist: they couldn't list the same things more than twice in the journal. That really made them focus on the little mundane things in their life. Try it out...you may find it helps refocus you, too!

So, enough about that. You're really checking in to see pics of our Halloween, aren't you?? We don't have much, I'm afraid. The hubster was in charge of the pics and he's not as nostalgic as I am, so we'll have to make do with what we've got.

On Wednesday, the 27th we participated in a costume parade at a local senior center and boy, was it fun!!! The olds just loved seeing all the kiddo's dressed up for Halloween. Of course D strutted his stuff like a pro.






Thursday we had a 12pm ultrasound. Baby #2 is looking good!! Heartrate of 176 (which means girl, for those wondering) and measuring right on track! We are 9 weeks preggo today.

This past weekend we went out of town to visit Aunt Suge and her crazy bunch. D loved playing in the boy's room!! We had a wonderful visit and a few hours after pulling in the driveway here at home we were off to the neighborhood block party.

D got to trick-or-treat for the FIRST time Sunday night. Our street is pretty quiet so there were only 5 houses to go to but he had a ball blurting out, "trick or treat!"





Yesterday we invited L and A over for some afternoon sandbox play. We haven't seen them in a while so D was excited to get some A-time in. As usual, the boys had a great time together.

I was going to post about the camp coming up but I think I'll wait until next time. The little man is napping and mommy needs to try and get in some z's too, if possible.

We also have a recipe club tonight and David made his SCRUMPTIOUS spinach. We should definitely win tonight!!! I'll post the recipe in the next post and let you know if we won or not.

This little puppy...

This past week we were pretty busy.

Wednesday we met R and G at an Arts Center that houses a museum type children's attraction. It is math and science in nature and has some COOL exhibits! D especially liked the marionettes and the magnet board.





Thursday we went to the church mom's group playdate at a local playground. If you are looking for a nanny, this is the place to find one! The playground is in the middle of a very affluent neighborhood and when I first rolled up on the scene it was only dark skinned older women with very light skinned, blonde haired children. I knew right away that this was nanny utopia.

Since D wanted to eat his snack before playing, we sat at a picnic table in the shade and I got to eavesdrop on the nannies. It is an interesting dynamic. I am so thankful that I get to stay home with my son and be the main influence in his life. I cannot imagine that I could truly trust anyone else to give him the love and attention that I can. It is a sacrifice to stay home, but one that I'm happy to make and I'm so glad my husband feels the same.

I did run into J and her two boys, I and V at the park. I haven't seen J in about a year and it was good to catch up. We figured out that her youngest and D will be in the same grade at the school! I am happy that there are already a few cool mom's that I know who will be with us at the school as D grows up. It'll be great to continue our friendships as well.

Friday we met AM and M at a local consignment sale and I bought D some shoes, books and a few long pants for the upcoming season change. We made plans to meet up that afternoon to go to our local neighborhood park. K sent us an email earlier that morning inviting us to meet them as well. There ended up being 6 of us there and the kids had a ball!

I am so glad the weekend is almost here...I can really use some mommy sleep time.

A hidden oasis in the midst of the city

We were told of an indoor playground this week. It is not too far from the house and best of all, it's air conditioned!! A must in this 100 degree heat.

We checked it out on Monday and decided it was worthy of a repeat visit, so we went again today. There are three large playthings for climbing and sliding and a little balance beam, of sorts for the littler ones.

Apparantly this has been a well-kept secret as there were no other kids there but us! Another reason to keep it on our list.

We met a couple of ladies there. K and G, from the neighborhood group, and AM and M, from the meetup group. How funny that they had previously met at a yoga class. How random!! K just revealed via FB that she is 16 weeks preggo. You'd think at 16 weeks no announcement would be necessary, but you've seriously got to see this girl! She doesn't even look preggo in the least!!! SO not fair!

AM and M showed up about a half an hour later. She wasn't sure if she was going to be able to make it, due to the nap thing, but they did. I haven't seen her since her daughter's 1st birthday party on the 3rd of this month. She must have been pretty busy, as she said she's had company since then. She mentioned that her SIL has a drastically different parenting style than she does. That makes the time seem even longer, I'm sure. (See my post about parenting styles!)

I also got some dirt on the meetup group comings and goings. Since there are a lot of women, a lot of them very young, there has been some drama. What a surprise, right??? Women=drama?? Who'd a thunk it?





Tomorrow we have a pool playdate at K and P's. We may have to skip it so that D and I can check out a storytime for our summer camp in August. We'll just see how the weather goes. If it's too hot we'll skip it.

Friday we are hosting the baby bounce here. It's also my hubby's birthday AND our anniversary. Fun!

Giggle, Giggle, Quack!

The Children's Theater in town presented the play version of the book, "Giggle, Giggle, Quack" by Doreen Cronin and Target hosted a free ticket day yesterday.

I invited a few of D's friends to join us. Two other couples and their sons took us up on the invitation. The show was FANTASTIC and the boys did great! The first act was 40 minutes, followed by a 15 minute intermission. The second act was 20 minutes.

D was mesmerized by the singing and colorful costumes. We'll definitely have to do that again! I wish we could have gotten pictures with the actors after the show, but D was NOT having that!! Oh well, maybe next time.

After the show, one of the couples had to leave but the other couple and us had plans to go to dinner. So, off to the restaurant we headed!

We had a wonderful time eating and hanging out. The boys are so cute together. When I get the pictures back from L I'll post a few.

Baking Day!!

I love to bake!! I have visited many blogs that have inspired me to be more creative with my baking. This being a holiday weekend was a PERFECT opportunity for me to try something new.

Tomorrow we are having a cook-out (depending on the rain) and I am bringing dessert. I made a small square cake for the five of us to munch on after lunch. What's so special about a square cake, you may ask??? Well this one is red, white and blue tyedyed when you cut into it. I obviously don't have pictures of the inside, but when we cut into it tomorrow I'll snap some. Here's the top:



Sunday, the 4th, we have plans to attend the KC 4th event at the clubhouse. They are in need of sweets for the cake walk. I decided to try my hand at it this year. So I whipped this baby up today:



Not very special? Well, I am loving the surprise inside cakes and this one is three layers; top is red, middle is white, bottom is blue!! I wish I could get a picture of the inside of this one, but alas, I'll never know who ends up with it. Ah, that's life...

After baking all morning we went to our second baby bounce playdate. There were 8 of us, one a new member! The kids loved wiggling and then got to have some play time afterwards.

A few of us made plans to meet up at the EC 4th of July Parade tomorrow. Hopefully it won't rain and we can check it out. There is supposed to be LOTS of kid friendly entertainment. Rain, rain, go away...Come again some other day!!

June Progress Report: Ice skating in July???

Yesterday we had a full day. Pool playdate at L's and an afternoon play session at the play area at the mall.

While at the pool playdate I extended two invites to join us at the pool today. They both accepted, although one had to cancel because A was showing signs of allergies again.

After a nap, we headed to the Galleria's play area. It was really cool! D had a lot of fun climbing, sliding and crawling around. He got knocked down three times by some larger kids who were over the height limit. We left shortly after and went to the bottom floor to watch the ice skaters practice. D and G were fascinated!!!

Now for the Progress Report!!

30 number of days in this month
15 number of scheduled playdates we attended
18 number of invitations issued to/by me
2 number of invitations I had to turn down
1 phone number stored in my cell phone
1 friend made this month!!

I think I need to amend my original goal. Two friends a month is quite a bit, especially when you've got to upkeep the ones you have.

So I will state it now: From this point on, by official decree, one friend a month is my goal!!

Now, let's bring on July!!

Our first dinner "date"

This morning L had to call and cancel our "date" at storytime because A had an allergic reaction to the mosquito bite he got yesterday at the Arboretum. Poor little dude. She was going to give him some benadryl and see how things went.

We went ahead and journeyed to storytime anyway. We ran into S, the neighborhood lady who was on modified bedrest. She had her baby two weeks ago today and was ready to get out of the house. Brave woman: a 17 month old and a two week old. Needless to say, she didn't stay long.

When we got home I turned my attention to the kitchen. More specifically, the refrigerator. It's been in desperate need of a clean down and some reorganizing. I got the inspiration from the following blog that I just LOVE: http://lesscakemorefrosting.blogspot.com
If you are a crafty lady, I encourage you to check it out! She gave me the idea to make a felt board game of some sort.

Anyway, back to the fridge. My FIL came and played with D so he was out of my hair while I scrubbed, washed, organized and threw out a bunch of expired stuff. Here's the before:



And here's the after:



Now I can see what's in the veggie drawer so I'm not buying more and more zucchini while perfectly good zucchini rots at the bottom of the crisper drawer. I am so in love with it now!!!



Since L and I are business trip widows tonight we decided to meet up and take the kids out for dinner. Nothing fancy, just the mall food court, but at least it's out of the house, right?

After an elegant meal courtesy of Chick-fil-A we took the boys to the outdoor courtyard and D got to run off some energy. Just in time to get him all pooped out for bed! He had a blast kicking the little soccer ball, running through the grass and smelling the flowers. What a boy!

Bring in the clowns...

Wednesday we had two activities to attend, both at the same mall, so that was helpful on so many levels.

The first activity was a clown show! One of the Ringling Barnum & Bailey's circus was there to entertain us and read to us. On the way there, D kept saying, "clown!" He has a book in the car for traveling that is titled, "C is for Clown". I don't know that he had any idea what a real clown would look like, but he sure was excited.

Once we were seated and ready for the show, three of the neighborhood girls showed up and sat with us. Halfway through the show another of our girls came. When D saw the actual clown come on stage, he pointed and waved! He kept saying, "clown!"

Photos coming soon...please check back!

We had lunch plans pretty much immediately following the show. The ladies from the neighborhood group decided to go to the food court for some lunch and opened the idea up to us all. I had to decline, since we already HAD plans. How does that happen?? I was a little bummed to leave them there but was excited to eat at the fairly new Italian restaurant.



Unfortunately, D was getting tired and about ready to crash, so we decided to make an appearance and then split. We caught up with the meetup girls and had a good chat. Of the five of us, three are preggers and one has a five month old baby girl, so we were the seniors in the group.

D crashed on the way home. All in all, it was an eventful day!

It's the little things...

This afternoon we met A and L at SMG for a matinee movie. The theater was showing Charlotte's Web (the new version with Dakota Fanning)for $2 adult ticket and $1 kid's ticket. The ticket lady let D and A in for free! That's the cute discount, folks.

The boys did great! We brought lunch for them and they ate while the movie played. Both boys started to get wiggly with about 20 minutes left but there were no meltdowns. Next week they are showing Curious George and we are planning on returning. R mentioned that she would like to bring G next week so we'll have to invite them along as well. Even if they don't make it through the whole movie, we're only out 2 bucks!! Can't beat that, huh?

After D's nap we went to Michael's and picked up some materials for a project I've been wanting to put together. I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do but I knew that I wanted to make D a form of felt board game. Something quiet that he can play with at church or in the car and not bother anyone.

After checking out all the aisles (twice) we decided on a felt puppy game. I took one long firm piece of felt and folded it in half. They had some felt pieces that are adhesive backed and we picked up 5 colors. I also found some iron on puppies that we snagged. Last, I grabbed some velcro.

Here is the finished product (minus the spinner that I just can't figure out!).



D will spin the spinner and move his puppy to the appropriate colored spot. The object is to get your puppy "home". Cute, huh? And it'll reinforce his colors. He LOVES moving the puppies around the board!! It's the little things, folks...