October 31, 2007

Happy Halloween!

7:10 Ah, sweet sweet drop off.

7:30 Breakfast. We were out of our normal oatmeal so I kept asking Ariel if she wanted toast or waffles. She kept saying, "Hot cereal!" so then I scoured my pantry and came up with an old package of a different brand. She ate it fine.

9:30 Fabulous trip to the grocery store. It was that time of the month (the time when I run out of toilet paper) and it was very needed. Ariel wore her costume over her clothes and charmed everyone.

10:45 Got home. Ariel had a quick yogurt lunch, then we went outside to take costume pictures:





This is Ariel this week. Wah for everyone.







11:20 Drove to go get Adam. It was chilly this morning and plus, I didn't want to be late with Alex.

12:00 Got home, Ariel down for a nap. Adam colored while Ariel slept.



1:15 Becky got off work early and she and Ariel joined us at Alex's school Halloween party. First, there was a crazy parade. Even more crazy because the whole school was parading so it was a mass chaos of kids.



Then we had a little party back in the classroom. Ariel skipped the parade and was pretty darn cranky during the party. But all the kindergarten girls thought she was cute.



Here's Alex's class. Adam would make a great kindergartener. He listened to the Halloween book better that half of the class, and just jumped right in with all the big kids.



After school I took some costume pictures of my boys:









And then we went inside to carve pumpkins. Alex's job was to gut them:



Alex also designed our pumpkins (inspired and based completely on a jack-o-lantern we saw at his school's fall festival).



Pretty scary!



And then we went trick-or-treating. Here's my superhero family. I never did get the Wonder Woman costume for myself. First I balked at paying $50. Then I thought I could get one off of eBay and even bid on a few, but they were still going for $40. Then I thought I could buy one and sell it myself on eBay next year but I never got around to it. I promise not to be so lame next year. Maybe I'll even have that pumpkin carving party I was talking about.



And, I have very exciting news. I'm going to visit Crissy tomorrow, for 6 days. By myself! So what if I have a connection in Memphis, I'm going BY MYSELF! We have some very adult fun activities planned and I'm SO excited. And maybe when I get back next week Ariel will have had an exorcism and will be more pleasant to be around.

Have a great week!

October 30, 2007

7:00 Ariel was on time today. Lucky me.

7:30 Ariel ate breakfast this morning, oatmeal.

8:00 After breakfast, Ariel became quite clingy. She sat on my lap while I ate and read the paper, and then dramatically threw herself on the floor when I needed to put her down to get ready.

8:45 Left for stroller class.

9:00 Stroller class was not very productive. Ariel would not let me put her down today. I did some of the workout holding her, like lunges and squats and 5 sets of stairs. And she did sit in the stroller as long as I was walking, which we did a bit of outside. But I missed out on all the arms and ab work, plus the stretching. We ended class today at a new baby boutique and Ariel and I ended up snuggled on a bean bag chair while everyone else finished up class.

The kids wore their costumes to the mall, except for Ariel. I did bring it, but every time I asked her if she wanted it on I got an imphatic "NO."

11:00 Left the mall. Ariel fell asleep in the car.

11:35 Picked up Adam ON TIME.

11:45 Dropped off Alex ON TIME. Then Adam and I went though the Taco Bell drive thru for lunch.

12:10 Got home. Ariel stayed asleep and went to her bed.

2:30 Woke Ariel up to pick up Alex.

2:45 We didn't play after school because we had plans!

3:45 Dropped off all three kids and my car at Becky's work. We switched cars and she took the kids to Gramdpa's school for some early trick-or-treating. I had a photshoot.

The photoshoot was hard, 3 wild kids. Here's my favorite of the session:



And the rest are here.

October 29, 2007

7:15 Drop off. Ugh.

7:45 Ariel asked for breakfast, but didn't eat any hot cereal.

9:00 After a morning of excessive whining I put on the Killers CD Becky lent me to even out the noise level. After a bit I noticed that Ariel had gotten quiet and when I checked on her, she had fallen asleep leaning on her dinosaur on the couch. I moved her to her bed with no problem.

9:30 Ted doesn't have school this week (he goes to a crazy charter school) and so he came over for a playdate. I started knitting a sock for Alex.

11:15 Ariel was still asleep, so Ellen stayed at my house while I rode up to get Adam (on time, I might add).

11:40 Came back with Adam and took Alex to school.

Ariel was still asleep and so Adam and I did our normal lunch and afternoon thing.

2:25 I needed to pick up Alex so I woke up Ariel. She seemed fine for taking such a long nap.

2:50 Ariel wanted to do her usual swinging for hours and after 5 minutes I impulsively invited Riley and her mom and baby brother to our house. I figured the kids could still play and I don't happen to have a swing at my house.

3:00 Had a snack when we got home. Ariel had some yogurt and cheerios (really Perky-Os, which frighten Ellen).

3:30 Becky picked up Ariel early. Hurrah!

I finished my sock before dinner. I don't know why I haven't done a kid's sock before. I have a ton of leftover sock yarn from all the adult pairs I've made. And an adult sock takes about 4-7 days to do and a kid's sock is going to take 2 TV nights. Sha-bamb.

Here's a picture. The sock turned out a bit small for Alex, so this pair will be for Adam.



Oh, and I put that single sock on Adam at least an hour ago and he's still wearing it. I think wearing one sock would drive me more crazy than toe-socks!

October 26, 2007

Warning: Blogging under the influence. Seems easier to get this out of the way Friday night than to try and remember Sunday night. And dad, stop freaking, only slightly under the influence *ahem*.

7:15 Drop off. Once again, I was already dressed and showered. NPR is a powerful motivator.

7:30 Ariel said she wanted fresh waffles for breakfast, but she didn't eat many. I did hear Adam reprimending (yes, dad, I know this is spelled wrong but I can't get it) her on the evils of eating syrup without a waffle. Guess he's heard that a few times before.

9:00 Left for PALS. PALS was less fun than last week. They have a new room in a *ahem* former supply closet and it's smaller and noisier than the previous room. Also, there were at least twice as many kids as last week. Ariel was very shy until the last part when we went outside.

11:00 Fatal mistake. After PALS, I stopped by Safeway for Jamba Juice and yeast for challah. Everything took longer than I thought, plus Alex poked a hole through his Jamba Juice and made a huge mess in his lap. Long story short, we were way WAY late. I decided to drop Alex off first and he was actually on time. Then I picked Adam up at 11:50. The school had to call me to make sure I wasn't dead and he was in the office for at least 10 minutes. At least it was Adam and he was perfectly fine and chatting up a storm with the secretary. But it will make it hard for me to email his teachers to try and get him out of school on time in the future.

11:50 Got home, Ariel was asleep and transfered.

1:15 Ariel woke up coughing and didn't go back to sleep. I noticed her nose was runnier than usual today.

2:30 Picked up Alex. We stayed and played a while even though it was 20 degrees colder than yesterday. Ariel was on the swing much less today because there were two dogs to chase on the playground. Puppy!

3:30 Went home, and went immediately to Wild Oats for dinner food.

Ariel likes Wild Oats, they have kid shopping carts. Luckily my kids are so over that because there are only two carts in the whole store. Ariel pushed hers around (fairly well, I might add) until they kids scored a free cookie after Ariel rammed into Alex and he starting howling. Pre-howling picture:



See that green bag? It's full of kale, which I ate most of by myself tonight. The family cares not for kale. And next to it is the lime for my Corona. Oh, sweet sweet Corona :) So far, I've only had 3. But I've got to drink it up before the lime goes moldy.

4:00 Got home from store and pick up.

October 25, 2007

Today is going to be picture light, as I did not actually touch my camera today. But I forgot to share some from Hannah's session on Tuesday. These are my favorites:







The rest of the session is on flickr. They were on my website, but my website is temporarily down. We are switching from hosting it on our own server to hosting it with Go Daddy, and we are also switching our DSL to qwest to save some bucks (so there you go, Dad).

7:15 Drop off. Not awake. Not happy. But I made some coffee this morning and it was EXCELLENT. So back to the coffee methinks.

7:30 Ariel had hot cereal for breakfast. She did not care for Annie's bunny cereal. And I guess she also does not care for my homemade spelt waffles.

9:00 Stroller class at the mall. It was so nice today and we did the whole class outside. Which meant much lunging and not much ab work. I forgot to blog yesterday that Ariel engaged Lilianna in L's first cat fight. They were squabbling over a beaded necklace and Ariel was heard squeaking, "Baby, let go!" (Jeremy's interjection - did I tell them if they lifted their shirts they could both get beads?)

10:35 After class we were trying to make it home for lunch and weren't going to make it. Alex did not want pizza so I let him choose lunch and he chose cinnabon. Ariel liked his choice too. I'll remember to pack a lunch on Tuesday.

11:35 Picked up Adam, dropped off Alex on time.

11:50 Got home, put Ariel right down for a nap.

12:15 Adam had possible his very first playdate ever. His classmate Eric came over. Eric thinks Adam is his best friend, but I'm not sure it's reciprocated. Eric is bossy and physical with Adam, which Adam tolerates. But the playdate was very sweet and they both did fine.

1:15 Ariel woke up. She asked for mac & cheeses but didn't eat much. She did eat a few apple slices.

2:00 Eric went home.

2:30 Picked up Alex. We played at school for a long time. I didn't actually use my stopwatch but Ariel was on the swing for about 45 minutes. I finally had to pry her off, my sore biceps couldn't do one more push.

3:45 Got home. I found Alex's school picture in his backpack. He looks like a very timid kindergartener but I'm impressed with the photography. He has very nice singular catchlights in his eyes, the lighting is nice and there aren't any hot spots on his skin. The only thing I notice is that his eyes look more gray than blue. And yeah, for the record, it's not kosher to scan copyrighted pictures, but I added the huge watermark and I won't do anything else with this picture.



4:30 Pick up.

October 24, 2007

Thanks to my devious husband, I was actually up at 6:30 this morning. He's right, NPR's pledge drive is a powerful motivator for getting out of bed and turning off the alarm. Which meant when Ariel got her, I was showered and dressed.

7:15 Drop off. Breakfast - hot cereal.

9:00 Rachel and Lilianna came over to knit. I got quite a bit done after I realized that I couldn't knit and mother at the same time, so I put on Blue's Clues. Rachel didn't get as much done, Lilianna does not care for Blue.

10:30 Rachel left, we ate lunch. Ariel had a cheese stick and some mac & cheese.

11:15 Rode our bikes to get Adam.

11:37 Adam got out of school. Adam is supposed to get out at 11:30 but he never does. But today was late enough that we were 5 minutes late to Alex's school so we had to get a tardy slip. It's very frustrating, I think the other option is picking Adam up early, which means going into his school and getting an early dismissal slip and then gathering Adam's belongings and finally finding him on the playground. My life would be much easier if Adam just got out in time.

11:55 Got home, Ariel went down for a nap.

2:00 Ariel woke up.

2:30 Picked up Alex. Then we went straight to the Pumpkin Patch because the weather was so nice. It was in the 70s today (and almost snowing last Sunday).



Ariel in the hay bale maze, "Where r u, Alex?" (I think Ariel speaks lollycat)



Ariel looking at the cows. She liked the cows. And then sheep and the donkey and the bunnies and the kitties.



Yes, this is one of the slightly lame pumpkin patches that trucks in the pumpkins from a different field. But I do believe they were grown across the street.







The corn maze that we didn't go into.













4:10 Dropped Ariel off at Becky's work.

October 22, 2007

Another crazy weekend for our family. We had the Fall Festival Friday night and then I went up to Nederland for a photoshoot Saturday morning (pictures are here.) Dad was not into it.

Sunday morning was Sundays school and then in the afternoon we hosted our first chavarah meeting. Chavarahs are little groups in within the synagogue that hang out and do Jewish stuff together. Our meeting was nice, but only 3 of 6 families could make it. Which, considering how small and loud my house is, that was probably for the best. And Jeremy's wasn't even miserable, so that was nice too.

7:15 Drop off

7:30 Breakfast - hot cereal

8:30 Mae-Mae and Ellen came over (with coffee!) Shortly after, Alex's friend Josh came over for a playdate and I didn't see either one the rest of the morning.

10:45 Ariel had a light lunch of goldfish and mac & cheese

11:00 Down for a nap. Mae went down for a nap shortly after, I babysat her while Ellen volunteered at Ted's school. Ellen stayed a bit at my house so I didn't have to take any kids to pick up Adam.

While Ariel napped, I reorganized my pantry. It was almost fun, and it's definately better.

1:00 Wake up. And Mae woke up a bit later and the girls played pretty well with Adam.

2:30 Ellen stayed with the kids while I picked up Alex from school.

3:00 Quick trip to Michael's. I bought some plastic pumpkins for Hannah's photoshoot tomorrow. It's going to be super cool (stay tuned). Then we went to bed bath & beyond because I wanted an under-the-cabinet paper towel holder. Last night I was on an organization spree and got my spice rack, salt & pepper, cookie jar and coffee maker off the counter. Now all that is left is the paper towel holder and I think it should go too. Simplify! I did find a holder at B3, but I think it's too big to work in the space that I have.

4:00 Got home. Took some fall pictures:



I think Ariel was saying, "Whut?" in this one:



4:30 Pick up.

October 19, 2007

Roses are red,
sugar is sweet,
Becky with Starbucks
is such a nice treat.

7:15 Ah yes. I went 6 tired days without coffee. And then Becky brought me an innocent tall mocha and it was yummy. It really kicked in, so much so that I forgot to eat breakfast and I can't remember ever doing that before. Mmmmm.

7:30 Ariel had hot cereal for breakfast.

9:15 Alex and Ariel and I went to PALS. Mae-Mae was there, which was all Ariel needed. Ariel had a good time with the slide and a baby and even did some art with Mae. I wonder if Mae is going to be a south-paw:



11:15 Left PALS. Alex ate lunch in the car (not that he was very hungry after 1/4 loaf of challah) and we went straight to Adam's school to pick him up.

11:30 By the time we picked up Adam, Ariel was asleep.

11:50 Got home, Ariel went straight to bed.

1:00 Ariel woke up, had some mac & cheese for lunch. Then we walked to the park. Ariel swung for a while. She swung on all three swings. Then we went down the slide together.

Here's Ariel trying to get up a ladder:



And Adam running full force at me:



2:25 Left the park to walk to Alex's school.

2:45 Got home and rode bikes to the grocery store for a super fun trip to the "pumpkin patch." Alex's school was having a Fall Festival in the evening and Alex wanted to bring a jack-o-lantern. We didn't have time to go to a real pumpkin patch, so the store it was. Each kid picked out their own small pumpkin.

We also returned the Sponge Bob video that Adam picked out on Thursday. Adam liked Bob, but it was too traumatic for Alex. How that child watches Star Wars is beyond me. Alex picked out Blue's Clues and Adam picked out Mickey Mouse (which Ariel was excited about and Alex preemptively declared "too funny" - his way of saying he wouldn't like it).

3:45 Got home. I made challah and helped Alex carve his pumpkin.

4:00 Pick up. We had another relatively easy nuk- free day. Go Ariel!

And yes, the Fall Festival was lots of fun. Alex's pumpkin didn't win any contests, but our whole family (yes, WHOLE) family enjoyed square dancing and the chili cooking contest.

October 17, 2007

7:15 Drop off. A new low, Becky had to drop off Ariel in my bedroom since I still wasn't up yet.

7:30 Breakfast - yogurt and hot cereal.

So apparently today is the first day of Ariel's life - without the nuk. She's going cold turkey. I'm glad I have a 4 day break until I see Ariel again.

9:00 Left for our adventures of the day. First, we had to get gas. I haven't gassed my car up in forever, I bet it's been more than a month. But I stopped my gas log so I don't know for sure. I've started up the log so I can see how long I can go. Next, we went to Kohl's. They had some nice sales going on. Alex got a new pair of sneakers in size 11. There are his first pair of tie shoes and he's excited to learn. I also got two more pairs of Halloween socks for $1/each. Score! After Kohl's we dashed to the library for the second half of story time. Ariel had no interest in such going-ons.

11:00 After story time we went to Michael's for the shelves I needed for my Judaica shrine. They had just what I wanted, and on sale, too.

11:15 We had a quick lunch of champions at Safeway - granola bars and gateraid.

11:35 Picked up Adam.

11:45 Dropped off Alex.

11:50 Got home. Ariel was asleep in the car and stayed asleep. I set up my non-idolatry Judaica shrine:



As usual, the cordless drill wasn't charged but I was able to hammer those screws in. I'm sure it's all the same in the end, right?

And see, the shrine's not creepy, I also have a nice pagen non-idolatry Halloween candle display:



1:30 Sam and Mae came over for a playdate. Well, Mae came over for a nap. Adam and Sam tried their best to play quietly so the girls could sleep, but neither one is known for their quietness.

2:00 Ariel woke up. I fixed her some mac & cheese.

2:30 Picked up Alex from school.

2:45 Ellen took Adam to pick up Ted from school.

3:30 Ruckus playdate with Ted et. al ensued.

4:30 Pick up.

Ariel did fine today without her nuk. I think it helped that she didn't need it to take a nap since she fell asleep in the car. She did ask for it a few times today (some more dramatic than others) but I told her it was "all-gone bye-bye" and then distracted her with something else.

October 16, 2007

7:15 Drop off

Ariel was not too excited about breakfast. She had a couple pieces of waffle and some yogurt.

8:40 Left for stroller class.

9:00 Stroller class was super fun today. We've been walking outside this month, up until today. Today was too chilly, so we were inside running up and down escalators and stairs. Luckily the escalators turned on before we could complete our full circuit, but I bet we did 12 laps, including 5 on the super long stairway. We also did lots of lunges and bicep curls and my arms are tired just typing this. Around 9:30 We ran into Grandpa and Hannah. Grandpa did not work out with the Mommies, but he did hang out with the kids. Alex and Ariel did fine, except for Ariel tripping on the stone floor and getting an ouchie. I solved that with a Clifford bandaid on her forearm. I don't think her forearm was actually hurting, but that's where she wanted the bandaid and she did stop crying.

Alex was being shy with 4 year old Gwen who is usually at preschool. And then at the very end he was sad that he didn't get to play. I don't think Gwen and Lilly even noticed Alex hiding in the couch cushions for an hour.

10:40 After class we went upstairs and had some FREE pizza. It was FREE because the restaurant didn't have their cash registers on yet. I thought about paying on my way out, but figured we'll be having lunch enough as it is at the mall. And speaking of pizza, I was adventurous and had eggplant/tomato. And it was surprisingly good. Ariel shared some of Alex's pizza and then burned off all those calories running around and around and around the table.

11:15 Left a tad late to pick up Adam. Ariel fell asleep immediately.

11:35 Picked up the Adam.

11:45 Dropped off the Alex.

Adam and I went home and he had lunch. Ariel stayed asleep and transfered to bed. Then Adam and I laid down for a nap. I haven't had coffee in 4 days now. It makes me tired.

1:15 Ariel woke up so I had to get up too. Lucky Adam got to keep sleeping.

Ariel had a little lunch. Grapes (see, grapes!)



And then a graham cracker.

Then she was just being silly:



2:20 Had to wake Adam so we could go get Alex.

2:35 Picked up Alex. We stayed on the playground for about an hour later, with Riley. Ariel spent most of that time on the swing. She's a nut:



3:40 Got home. Another quick snack of go-gurt.

3:50 Put on some Blue's Clues.

4:10 Pick up. Ariel was not happy to have to leave Blue.

October 15, 2007

I actually had a pretty quiet weekend for once. Grammie came up Thursday afternoon to celebrate Jeremy's birthday, and then she took the kids home with her (they didn't have school on Friday). Jeremy took Friday off from work and was lazy. I had a photoshoot Friday morning:









The whole session is here.

7:45 Drop off. Apparently Becky is having alarm and/or hearing issues.

Breakfast - hot cereal

8:45 Ellen came over with Mae and I went to observe Adam's school to observe his class. The observation was supposed to be very Prime Directive-like and I wasn't supposed to interact with the kids. Of course Adam didn't understand that, but he did finally bring work to a table in front of me and show me how to do it. He put animal beads on a string, did two puzzles and then an open/shut basket with different jars and containers. But I was mostly impressed with how autonomous the kids all were. They got their own snacks, put their dishes away and put there finished drawings in their own cubbies. I watched one girl bring a peg board with a giant basket of pegs to a table and the basket slipped and all the pegs ended up on the floor. She didn't freak out or find a teacher, she just started cleaning them up. And she cleaned up ALL the pegs and then sat down and did the work. Now I just need to figure out how to get this going on at home.

9:45 Got home. Ellen and Mae hung out of a bit. I was also baking my weekly batch of bread this morning.

11:15 Rode our bikes to Adam's school, got Adam, went to Alex's school, yada yada.

12:00 Got home. Ariel had lunch - mac & cheese, then went down for a nap.

I started working on a photography project. A year ago I bought a set up for an off-camera flash and umbrella but I've never used it. I got it set up today and bribed Adam with chocolate to sit.

This is in a dark part of my house that I would need light to shoot in. I need to get a reflector now, there's too much shadow on the right. But I made progress today!



2:00 Ariel woke up and I decided right at that moment I had to make up a batch of Ellen's chocolate chunk spice cookies. They were very good, but I was almost out of cinnamon and completely out of nutmeg so I'm sure they were missing something. And I like cookie recipes that only make one dozen, helps on the over-indulgence issue.

2:30 Left to pick up Alex. We stayed a while after school and Ariel played on the swings, of course.

3:00 Got home.

3:05 Each kid got a cookie for snack. Ariel wasn't that impressed, I think they were a tad clove-y.

3:15 Pick up. Whut?