Trick or Treat

Happy Halloween!! Have a safe and happy one. I just got back from helping out Emily's class with their Halloween party and I am EXHAUSTED. I told her teacher that I have no idea how she does it - and with a smile on her face everyday. I was only in charge of four kids and seven activities and I need a NAP. They weren't even sugared up yet. Anyway, Emily had a great time, and it was fun getting to know the other mommies and all the kids in her class.

Life around here

After the not so fun last post, I decided to share some pictures from the past few days. This one is Miss Paige acquainting herself with the "musical" apple. I was trying to get some pictures of her new rolling over stunt - but of course she would not cooperate.
Emily hamming it up for the camera. At first, she didn't want me to take her picture - she ran from the camera, so I told her, "Fine, I'll just take more pictures of Paige." She decided to pose. Nothing like a little sibling rivalry.I love it when Paige is in a good mood - she's so darn cute. Those eyes could just melt you.
The annual Halloween bag making night. I buy Halloween bags from the dollar store, and about $50 worth of candy and we have a little assembly line to make up bags to hand out to all the trick-or-treaters. I find the bags of candy much easier then letting kids choose what candy they want, or just giving each kid a handful. Much more efficient. I think that Halloween is Emily's most favorite holiday in terms of her helping factor - she helps make the bags, pick out pumpkins, and she LOVES scooping out the goop when we carve them - which we are postponing to Tuesday nite.
My most current favorite Paige outfit - could she BE any cuter??
We also made pumpkin cookies - Emily helped decorate with sprinkles. The cookies were her whole motivation for eating all her cauliflower at dinner tonight. Whatever it takes.

Ironic Sunday

Some of you may know, although most probably don't, my sweet little Emily is an EXPERT on Fire Safety. It started last year when the fire department visited Emily's school to talk about fire safety. They gave out coloring books, plastic fire hats and lots of fire safety rules. Emily, for some reason, really took to it, and we heard all about emergency lights, smoke detectors, emergency plans, and pretty much anything else for about three months after the visit. I was glad she was so into it, but at the same time, I was over hearing about it nonstop.

Last week the fire department made their annual visit to Emily's school again. Once again we were relegated to talk of fire safety. This time, the fire department brought each one of the kids a DVD that they could take home. OH GOODIE. It even had a catchy tune that has been in my head for a week. Emily has been sharing her fire safety knowledge to pretty much anyone, my Mom, my Aunt, strangers in a store.......

So why the title Ironic Sunday? Well, here's the story. On Saturday Eric went with my Grandfather and Uncle up to the Mount Pleasant area to my Grandfather's cabin to help out with the delivery of a new shed/barn. They stayed the night and returned on Sunday evening. My Mom, Emily, Paige, My Aunt Teresa, and me went to Somerset Mall for some Saturday shopping and lunch. On the way there Emily filled my Aunt in on all the fire safety things she learned. It was GREAT. That night I put the girls to bed, and collapsed in my bed at around 10pm. I was EXHAUSTED for some reason. At around 12:30am Paige woke up, I went in a gave her the pacifier and she went back to sleep. I went to the bathroom, only to find that the toilet was backed up. Great. I didn't care, I went back to bed and vowed to fix it in the morning. At 3:03am I was woken up by a chirping sound....was it a cricket? That would be no. I was the smoke detector in my bedroom. I guess the battery was dying. From experience, I knew that it would chirp until the battery was replaced. No big huge deal right? Well, yes it was. We have a vaulted ceiling in our room, and I could not, without getting the HUGE ladder out from the garage, change out the battery. I decided that maybe if I hit the test button it may stop....it was 3am, I was sleepy. I went downstairs, got the carpet rake (it had a long handle) and went back upstairs. I ran into Max on the way back up - he was on his way down, freaked out by the chirping. Of course, it didn't work. So now what do I do? I went back downstairs to get the stepladder to try and reach the smoke detector. On my way to the laundry room I came across a pile of doggy doo doo left by Max. Lovely. He is such a scaredy dog. Nervous pooper. Got rid of the poop - cursed Max who was watching the whole thing. Of course, I could not reach the smoke detector with the ladder combined with the carpet rake, but for some reason it decided to stop chirping. At this point I was covered in sweat, so I now had to change my PJ's. It was about 3:45am at this point. Went back to bed, laid there waiting for the smoke detector to start chirping again - it didn't, so I rolled over and went back to sleep. 3:53am - Paige wakes up for her middle of the night feeding. I went downstairs for the third time that night to get her bottle, and almost stepped in a pile of dog pee left by nervous Max. Is the Humane Society open at 4am? Got the bottle, fed Paige, went back to sleep at 4:20am. Paige woke up again at 7am, followed closely by Emily at 7:25am. Irony is amazing. I should not have made fun of Emily and her fire safety. Someone is watching!

Carving pumpkins tonight - something we didn't really get to do in Florida. Should have pictures tomorrow.

Three Months Old

Just some photos from Paige's three month photo shoot. This is my most favorite photo of the girls. I think they still look a lot alike - what do you think? I think Paige will probably be a little taller than her sister, but the hair color, the eye color is pretty much the same. They even have the same sparkle in their eyes.

The picture on the left is from when Paige was one week old, and now three months old. It's getting a lot harder to keep her on that doggie. She still fits just fine in his "lap", but she's getting much more squirmy and ended up falling off quite a bit. Luckily I was right there and caught her each time.

These Girls

Some days, actually most days, I can't help myself, but I just have to stop and squeeze Emily and Paige. Emily is much bigger and can run away from me, but most times she doesn't. She, in fact, will usually oblige me with a kiss anytime I ask. The best part about an Emily kiss is that you ALWAYS get a hug to go with it. A kiss and a hug - what could be better? Paige, on the other hand, does not exactly give you kisses and hugs, but you can get in all the squeezes you want....and all you can squeeze buffet if you will.

Yesterday, when I was driving with Emily after I picked her up from school, she was telling me about her day....actually, I was prying information out of her and not coming up with much. A typical conversation:

ME: "What did you do today?"

EMILY: "Ummmm...I don't member."

ME: "Did you play outside"

EMILY: "Yes."

ME: "Did you have snack?"

EMILY: "Yes. I had an apple and one cracker."

ME: "Did you do any work?"

EMILY: "Yes, but I don't member."

This plays over every Monday through Friday. Yesterday though, Emily told me that she was trying really hard to remember, and she got very "frusterated". She used this term all day. It was so cute. I don't have the heart to correct her. Pretty soon she'll be saying it correctly, which means she's growing up. This just makes me want to squeeze her.Last night we were going through the normal bed routine - bath, pj's, brush teeth, clean room. The cleaning the room part always gets me - Emily has about twenty stuffed dogs now (that's just an estimate, I stopped counting at about 15), and she has to put them to bed every night. They don't sleep in bed with her - they either sleep in a little doggy kennel, or the Build-A-Bear box that she got from one of her original dogs - Joey. She has to make sure all their night time collars are on them, and that they are in their appropriate sleeping quarters. I tried to do this once for her to speed up the whole process....guess what? Yeah, didn't work. Even though I put them in their correct places - SHE had to do it. It's kind of like when I switch off her light at night - it's her job, and she will literally get out of bed, switch it back on and switch it off again. I don't know about you, but all of this Emiliness just makes me want to squeeze her - and when she all tucked in bed at night - I can usually get all the squeezes I want.

Today, Paige is three months old. No longer considered a newborn. She had a BIG event here yesterday. I put her on her tummy for a little "tummy time" and she just decided that she wanted to be on her back again, so she rolled over. Yes, you heard me correctly, ROLLED OVER!!! Of course, she doesn't want to do it today....typical Paige. Happy Birthday sweetie.

These are pictures from the most beautiful sunset last night - Emily noticed it. She went racing through the house so we could all see the pretty sky.

Where have I been?

Well, I have been busy. I have been holding a baby non-stop for five days- or rather, a baby has been holding me hostage for the past five days. Paige has decided that she does not want to sleep at all during the day. I guess she thinks she's going to miss something. Well darlin' - we are a very boring family, so go to sleep!!


We did do something exciting on Saturday - we went to Stoney Creek Metropark and did a little hiking. The weather has been so beautiful here that I could not pass up the opportunity to enjoy it. Ironically, Paige pretty much slept the whole time.


We also went to Denewiths - a local plant nursery - and enjoyed some of their fall festivities on Sunday. It is still beautiful today, but I have lots of things to do inside - like update my blog - so here I sit.


Here's some pictures from the past few days:


Emily "cooking" at the sink. She was making some sort of soup. Actually, she was making a total mess, but she was having a blast.




Paige is very smiliey lately - she even wakes up with a silly little grin on her face - it makes this whole not sleeping thing a little more bearable.

This picture is of a backyard that we see everyday on our ride home from school - the colors are almost peaked right now. They are not as vibrant as they should be, but it's still pretty.

This picture is from our hike at Stoney Creek. I didn't think 1.8 miles sounded like much - but I forgot to add in the four year old factor. Emily did just fine until about a mile into it. Then she complained the whole rest of the way - she was hungry, tired, had to pee.....what fun it was. She did enjoy all the leaves that we collected.

And finally, this is from Sunday at Denewiths - the corn maze is behind the girls. It has been really windy here - we have even lost a few tombstones in our front yard. Luckily they didn't go far....just the front lawn.

Good Day

I got a lot accomplished today. Emily finally got a haircut, I returned some stuff to Babies R Us and got Paige a new hat and mitten set so she can now brave the cold. They only had size 12-24 months, but I got scared that I would not be able to find anything - so I bought it. I think she looks pretty darn cute. So, she'll have it for a couple years.

Because my Mom has a cold, I have been on dinner duty for the past few days - roast beef with mashed potatoes, carrots and green beans, plus rolls on Sunday - tacos, both hard and soft with homemade salsa on Monday, and tonight I made - courtesy of Ann Marie - Garden Tortellini Bake. My mom was not really into it...she kept saying..."This is interesting." But the rest of us almost ate the whole thing. Thank You Ann Marie!!!

I finally found a "G" for my shelves in the kitchen. I will have to take a picture of the things I have made for those shelves. AND most importantly, I found the rub on stitch runner at Archivers. Life is GOOD.

Emily and I are on chapter 4 of Charlotte's Web. She is liking this whole novel thing. Even Paige has cooperated and let us read in peace while she takes her early evening cat nap. (I took the picture with the self timer since Eric was at his train club)

Oh, and I finally have some pictures of Paige and Mommy courtesy of our resident four year old photographer - Emily. She's pretty good.