Happy Halloween! (304/365)

What a gorgeous day for Trick-or-Treating!! Like most Sundays, we
spent this one in Villa Park at Matt's parents' house. VP does their
trick-or -treating during daytime hours so we were able to enjoy the
beautiful sunshine as we went door-to-door. The wind had a chill on
it, but it was still quite gorgeous out!

My girls were dressed as Care Bears (Mike, Alice really should have
been Grumpy Bear instead of Cheer - ugh!), JR was his hero Thomas the
Tank Engine, and Sammy was a cute little bee.

We made our rounds around the neighborhood and all of the kids came
home with a sack full of goodies to eat. Matt was good and didn't eat
anything other than Smarties. Me, I apparently really needed some
chocolate today! We'll see how screwed up my weigh in is tomorrow -
it was a bad week.

I don't think I mentioned it, but Matt and I are doing another
weightloss challenge. It's really gotten Matt back on the wagon in
terms of good eating habits, but it's yet to light a fire under my
butt. I wish I had more willpower. It ends mid December. We'll see how
well I do with the holidays and with all of the candy in my house at
the moment!

I Love Lazy Saturdays (303/365)

We didn't do much of anything today. We played, watched a Halloween
movie or two, had an early dinner, and we finished the day with a
spooky movie under a tent made of sheets.

The day couldn't have been any better.

I Always Knew She Was Easily Amused (302/365)

Iz and I went to Alice's preschool Halloween party today. In order to
keep her out of the way of the other kids so she didn't get trampled,
I gave her three clothes pins to play with and wouldn't you know it,
they kept her busy the whole time! We passed them back and forth to
one another and I counted them to her as we passed them.

Alice played games, sang songs, trick-or-treated at the old folks home
a few doors down, freeze danced to the record daddy listened to every
year at Halloween, and all in all had a great time. I'm pretty glad we
were able to show up and help out.

Doctor Visit (301/365)

Alice: she's a beast! The kid weighs in at 50 pounds and she's 44
inches. That's off the charts for both measurements! I knew she was a
moose. I talked to the doc about her tonsils. He had mentioned them
before (she's got massive kissing tonsils), but it never caused her
issues so we left it at that. Now she snores, chokes on them, and they
impair her speaking to a point. Needless to say he recommended she see
an ENT and have them taken out.

Izzy: she's dropped from the 50th percentile for weight, to the 37th.
I'm not surprised considering she's been eating like a bird for the
past month. Doc upped her Zantac by a ml per dosage in hopes that that
is her issue. Cross your fingers that that is what is going on.

For good measure I threw in a pic of Alice's costume that I FINALLY
finished. Just in time too as her school Halloween party is tomorrow!

Someone Had Her Special Day at School Today (300/365)

We brought bakery made Swiss cake rolls for her special snack, and I
got to read Alice's favorite book to the whole class at the end of the
school day. Izzy, of course, came with and was in heaven surrounded by
kids (who all wanted to eat her up), books, and toys.

Her favorite part of the day? The fact that she's now old enough to
have a library bag and check out a book from the school library. She's
been talking about it for days now, and one of her teachers told me
that that was the first thing Alice told her this morning. I am SO not
surprised!!

What a Blustery Day (299/365)

This morning for me started very early - 3am to be exact. Alice got up
in a dazed panic looking for Teddy. I sent her to the potty, then put
her to bed. I then tossed any turned until I couldn't take it anymore
and I got up at 4am. Strike 1.

It was unusually hot, so I opened the window and the sliding door
causing a fabulous breeze to come in and it cooled me instantly. I
surfed the web trying to get the urge to fall back asleep. Before I
knew it it was 6am and a nice breeze wasn't the only thing coming in
the window. Unbeknownst to me it was drizzling and the intense wind
was blowing it in the house - all over a stack of mail and the rest of
out green cabinet.
Strike 2.

By 7:30am the rain was heavy and the wind was incredible. Then the
sirens went off.
Strike 3.

It was going to be a bad day.

You may have heard that a huge storm passed through here that
stretched from Canada all the way to Tennessee that was in front of
the strongest low pressure front in the month of October ever recorded
- according to my local news man. Needless to say I was pretty glad I
didn't have to be anywhere today.

The girls and I played and I finally decided I'd better work on
Alice's costume again as she needs it for Friday and Sunday! Good
thing I did too because the hand sewing is taking me much longer than
I expected.

Tonight Alice and Matt carved the pumpkins - designs totally by Alice.
One even has a crown because Alice's just had to be a princess.

After my princess went to bed I watched Rocky Horror and then,
unfortunately, I watched The Amityville Horror and now I'm going to
have to watch something happy before heading to bed.

Stupid Halloween.

P is For…(298/365)

Pumpkin!

We finally had the chance to start carving our pumpkins tonight. So
far they've just been gutted, tomorrow night we'll carve. Alice had a
hell of a good time fishing out seeds and spooning out pumpkin guts
into a bowl. I can't wait to carve them!

P is also for Parent/Teacher Conference.

This morning was my first one ever and I'm happy to report that Alice
is doing well. She excels in most academic areas, but she needs some
work in other areas. Nothing surprising, it's stuff we see at home too
like being aware of other people's personal space, sharing is not
grabbing toys from another kid, she resists transition from one thing
to another, etc. It's always good to know how she is for other people
and now I know where she needs work.

Thought I'd mention that Izzy is still not eating well. I've had to
resort to sitting her on my lap and playing the "Mommy take a bite,
now Izzy take a bite" game to get her to eat anything. I'm starting to
really feel like she needs her meds adjusted because it's starting to
feel like her first 9 months of life all over again. Thankfully she
has a well baby visit on Thursday. Hopefully it's nothing more than
her reflux acting up. I'll keep you posted.

What a Difference Four Years Makes(297/365)

Happy Birthday to my little girl. You came into our lives and changed
it forever. What a pleasure it has been watching you grow up, and I
can't wait to see what the future has in store!

Al's Last Day as a Three Year Old (296/365)

Well, I would say Alice's friend bday party was a success!

Alice was so full of anticipation this morning before her guests
arrived that she ran around the card table over, and over, and over
again. She invited three of her friends from preschool (the perfect
number of kids, if you ask me) and to say that the house was instantly
full of life is an understatement.

I can see why Alice chose these three girls, they really all mesh so
well together and every one of them (even Alice) were very well
behaved. When they painted pumpkins their difference in age was
surprisingly quite apparent. Two of the girls are 8ish months older
than the other two, and while they both painted quite detailed
pumpkins, the other two mixed up the paints and slapped it haphazardly
on the pumpkin.

Afterwards we made pita pizzas. Of course I provided toppings even
though I knew the kids were just going to want cheese. I was right, of
course, but they didn't go to waste as the adults who were here used
most of them up.

I can tell Alice is growing up as the four girls spent a lot of time
trashing, I mean playing in her bedroom WITH THE DOOR CLOSED. At one
point Matt went back there to tell them something and Alice promptly
told him that they were having a tea party for girls only, NO BOYS
ALLOWED! I tell you I swear she was just a baby yesterday.

The cake was great and received lots of great presents from her
friends. In the end we had about three hours of good fun and I don't
regret having just a simple, small party instead of a sleepover. And I
know Alice had great fun!

Tomorrow we're providing grub for our weekly trip to Grandma and
Grandpa Bathje's. Not really a party, but there will be more pizza and
even more cake. In a few short hours my baby will be four years old.
Man, time flys when you're having fun.

Can You Tell What We Are Preparing For? (295/365)

There's a random one in there from today when Alice's buddy Emily came
home with us from school today.

Anyway, Alice's friend bday party is tomorrow! Alice and three of her
best friends from school will be painting pumpkins, making pita
pizzas, and eating what I hope is a yummy princess bday cake. They
are all going to be dressed as princesses too - I know Alice is going
to flip!

Happy Bday, Uncle Ry!! (294/365)

Let me apologize now for using tinypic to upload this video. For some reason it was out of sync when I uploaded it to Photobucket, twice. And I have to use Photobucket because the video uploader for blogger doesn't work for me and hasn't in ages. Then I tried uploading it to Vimeo, but it's still waiting in the to be activated queue, whatever that is. SO, I decided if I was going to get this up by midnight I'd have to resort to Tinypic, so there you go. :)


Original Video - More videos at TinyPic

We miss you, Ry. We hope you're safe while doing Marine like things. LOVE YOU!

Mommy, I Need My Lunch on a Tray…(293/365)

Because sick people always eat their food off of a tray.

Well Alice missed school today. She's been getting sick, but this
morning she was running a fever so I kept her home. Hopefully she's
better by Saturday so we don't have to call off her princess bday
party. That will be one devastated little girl if that happens.

Well I Guess I Was Able to Rise to the Occasion (292/365)

Izzy had an honest to goodness choking incident at McDonnald's
tonight. It was just me and the girls so even though I did panic, it
wasn't like in the past when I flipped out and let Matt handle it.
Thankfully she was able to get that piece of apple out. After a good
cry and a drink of milk she was ok.

Let's hope we don't have to go through that again anytime soon.

I've Got a Case of the Mondays (291/365)

Dad's sick and I'm freaked out, two out of three of us have some sort
of GI bug, I've been tackling the daunting task of cleaning up this
house and preparing for the party on Saturday. I've got cranky
children and a tired husband who has been studying his ass off lately
(wish him luck, he's got two midterms this week) and I'm simply ready
to sleep the rest of this day away and wake up tomorrow to a better
day.

I hope.

Get better, Dad. We love you.

Fun in the Sun (290/365)

We figured we'd better enjoy it while it lasts! Pretty soon the days
will be short and dreary and today was just too nice to spend it
indoors!

Side note: thinking of you, Grandpa. We hope you get to come home
soon. Love, all of your Chicagoland girls (and Matt).