Halloween Fun!

I always love our annual visits to the Pumpkin Patch because of all the great photo opportunities!  The weather was great (it's been unusually warm this Fall) but the wind started to pick up so I pulled the shade down on Averi's stroller.  A few minutes later I looked down to check on her and realized that she was peering out from under the shade with her head sideways...it was so funny so of course we snapped a picture!

We created a Frankenstein jack-o-lantern which turned out pretty cute for being designed by a five year old!  Arielle actually helped me clean the pumpkin guts out this year...with a spoon {she and Zak think the guts are the most disgusting thing ever!}.

This year Arielle dressed up as a "Pink Pirate" and she was very excited to wear real makeup (eyeshadow and blush).  This was the first year that Averi dressed up and she was the most adorable ladybug ever!  Except she hated wearing the hat so that only lasted for the five minutes that we tried to get a "good" picture of her wearing it. 

We went trick-or-treating with Arielle's BFF from school.  Averi went too and she enjoyed every minute of it.  She kept pointing to the houses and babbling from her stroller.  I think she had just as much fun as the older kids :-)  Arielle decided that each house with their porch lights on was "in business" so she kept telling her friend, "It looks like this one's in business!"  Zak finally told her that it is actually "open for business" but it was really funny while it lasted. 

A Note to Averi from Arielle

This note that Arielle wrote to Averi {on Averi's new chalkboard table} is so sweet.  It fills my heart with joy to know that Arielle loves her little sister!

Translation: 

"Averi, I want to thank you for being a good sister"

A Letter to the Tooth Fairy

Arielle lost her first baby tooth about a month ago and I mean that literally.  She was on a field trip and tried to open her pudding with her and teeth which made the tooth fall out.  Apparently everyone including her teachers looked for the tooth but it was nowhere to be found.  At the suggestion of one of her teachers, Arielle wrote this letter to the Tooth Fairy explaining why she did not have her tooth to put under her pillow {or in her tooth pillow that hangs from her bed post as the case may be}:

Her spelling is pretty good for being five and not getting any help but for those of you who need a translation here it is:

Dear Tooth Fairy,

My tooth fell out and I'm not sure if you know or not or if you saw or not and I hope you know.

Love,

Arielle

The letter worked and the Tooth Fairy left Arielle a very generous amount of $5! 

Good thing I remembered to take a picture of the letter before the Tooth Fairy took it away ;-)

Here is a picture of Arielle with her newly missing tooth.  She has three more loose teeth on the bottom and her new one has already grown almost in full!


~Desiree~

Why yesterday was a good day

Yesterday was a good day! It all started when I got home from work and almost immediately after I walked through the door Averi started to cry. Why is this a good thing? Because it means that she missed me and she was happy to see me and wanted me to give her attention. I held her tight and felt all warm and fuzzy inside knowing that she feels this way about me.

After that Arielle came out of hiding from her bedroom {which is unusual for her to be alone in there during the day in the first place} and told me to close my eyes because she had a surprise. When I got up to her bedroom door I closed my eyes so she could open it to reveal the surprise. It was a "hair accessory shop" that she set up! She had neatly placed her pretend makeup, hair clips, brushes, mirrors, lip gloss and cell phones around the perimeter of her bench. She also put her "jewel" treasures on it and told me they were different colored hair dyes and asked me if I wanted her to dye my hair. The dye stick was the end of a very large fake flower that she likes to play with. It was too cute and I now wish I had taken a picture of it.

The very best part about yesterday was that Averi {sort of} slept through the night! I had fed her before she went to bed and three hours later just as I was going to bed because she woke up again. This was around 10:30. At about 12:30 she woke up again and I knew she couldn't possibly be hungry so I decided to let her "cry it out" and see what happens. Zak decided to get up and see if she would fall back asleep for him but as usual, this only made her cry harder and the whole time he was holding her she looked around for me. Since holding her didn't make her stop crying he put her back in the crib after a while. She only cried for about five more minutes and then she went back to sleep. Next thing I know I'm waking up to the sound of her crying and I look at the clock to see that it's 5:30 am. She went 7 hours without eating! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this wasn't a one time thing and she'll start sleeping through the night from now on. If not, I think adding baby food to her diet in a couple of weeks when she turns 6 months old will help do the trick.

~Momma to Bug~

Remember this...

This morning Arielle had this to say about jumping out of an airplane:

"If you jump out of an airplane and you don't have a parachute, you might land in the middle of the street and get hit by a car and hurt yourself."

~Momma to Bug n' Bear~

Happy Tears

Yesterday, Arielle and I were cuddling on the couch and she turned to me with a big grin on her face and said, "I have happy tears!" Then she said, "Why do I have happy tears?" to which I replied that her eyes were watery and that is why she had tears {I think she has some springtime allergies}. The point of this story is that I couldn't think of any time that I had ever mentioned happy tears to her, so how did she know what to call them? From her perspective she was happy to be spending some quality time with her mommy and it just so happened that tears were coming out of her eyes, so they must have been happy tears? The perspective of pre-schoolers never ceases to amaze me.



~Momma to Bug~

Dressing Up

Arielle received a Hannah Montana dance mat, video, wig and guitar for her birthday. She had a lot of fun dressing up and dancing and singing her heart out! I am amazed at how well she knows the words and can sing the songs.


~Momma to Bug~

Random Acts of Funny-ness

Here are some random acts of funny-ness by Arielle from the past week.



Arielle woke up crying last night at 2:30 am. Of course I immediately thought she was sick and would be burning up with a fever. Happily, she wasn't burning up at all or complaining about any other ailment. In the morning, I asked her if she woke up in the middle of the night because she had a bad dream to which she replied, "I accidentally dreamed about ants." I said, "Ants aren't scary though, are they?" and she said, "They were red ants." Earlier that week we had a discussion about animals that could sting you so that is where she learned about red ants. I thought for sure she was having nightmares about the ghosts and goblins on Scooby Doo, which we let her watch before going to bed. Probably not a good idea but she loves that cartoon!



One day Arielle was playing her harmonica and told me she was making restaurant music. And every time a discussion comes up about the President, she asks me why he can't come to our house to meet us. Last night, she insisted on taking a shower instead of a bath. Seeing how afraid she has always been of showers I was happy to accomodate her request. While she was in the shower she said, "Oh, this is much better today!" She still doesn't like to face the water and has to cover her eyes with a washcloth the entire time but that is still improvment. The best one was when she put her arms under her nightgown and stuck her fists out of her chest then told me she has big boobs!!!


Where does she come up with this stuff?


~Momma to Bug~

Smart Food

On the way to school and work this morning, Arielle shared some more of her three year old wisdom with me. She told me she was smart because of all of those "Lucky Charms" that she eats!

Maybe she's right. Or perhaps it is because she only eats the marshmallows that this particular cereal makes her smart. I'm surprised she didn't say that eating Smart Food {popcorn} makes her smart because she loves to eat that stuff too!



Speaking of being smart, I had to look up how to spell the word marshmallow.


~Momma to Bug~

Why did the grown-up cross the playground?

Arielle and I were talking about what to eat for dinner on the way to school this morning. All of this was brought about because she said she was hungry then she told me that her tummy was growing bigger. I replied, "Yes, because you are growing bigger and bigger every day." What she said next choked me up. She said, "I'm growing up into a grown-up!"

Three years old {almost four} and she already wants to be a grown up. So I told her that grown-ups don't get to have as much fun as kids do and her response was unforgetable.

"Grown-ups don't get to play on the playground, that is why they don't have fun."

So true.

~Momma to Bug~

Fruitful Lesson

Today Arielle learned a very important lesson. She learned what it means to steal and that it is wrong to steal. When we got home from shopping today I noticed she was playing with some fake decorating fruit. I had no idea where it came from so I asked her where she got it and she replied, "it was in my monkey purse." So I said, where was it before it was in your monkey purse and she told me the furniture store! I couldn't believe it. She had stuffed it in her purse before we left the store and stole it.

I told her that it was wrong to steal but she just looked at me blankly and I realized that she did not know what it means to steal. I scooped her up and held her in my arms and told her that stealing is when you take something that doesn't belong to you or when you take something from the store without paying for it. Then I said that when people steal, the police come to their house and put them in handcuffs then take them to jail, where they will be away from their families for a long time.

She got a very serious and anxious look on her face and got really close to me and said, "when the police come will you tell them that I didn't know it was wrong and then they won't take me away from you because I love you guys." She repeated this a few more times to make sure that I knew what to stay when the police showed up at our house. I guess my explanation of stealing scared her somewhat. Hopefully she learned her lesson.

~Momma to Bug~

Song and Dance

Arielle has been fortunate enough to receive some HaNNaH MoNtAnA presents this year from our friends and it has made her so happy! One of them is a Hannah walkman that has some of her songs recorded which is such a cool idea for kids.

Here she is practicing her song and dance {she wanted me to record her over and over again so I'm not too worried about her being camera shy anymore}. I'm thinking she should have her own Disney show in the next few years with this performance!

~Momma to Bug~

All about the drama!

DrAmA. This pretty much describes our lives over the past week or so. Arielle is no exception. Lately she has started to act so much like a GirL with hormones and all! For example, last night (and every night before that) she was playing with the Monster that we call Lexi while we were eating dinner. Now I have told her over and over again not to do this because it just makes Lexi beg us for food more and more. The ironic thing about this is that she hardly ever pays attention to Lexi except when we are eating! Go figure. So after repeated attempts to get her not to touch or speak to Lexi while we were eating I finally had enough and I said something very bluntly and loudly along the lines of "Arielle, just IGNORE her and she will go away!"

What did she do next? She got silent the looked at me with a very dramatic pouty face and I could see the tears welling up in her eyes. It took about a minute before she started sobbing, then she pushed her dinner plate out of the way so she could put her head down on the table and weep. I KNOW that most of this was for attention's sake but I could tell that some of it was just pure hormones boiling up inside. Poor girl. She just needed to cry and this was the best excuse she had all day.

Just wait until you see what caused her hormones to get the best out of her this morning.

To be continued...

~Momma to Bug~

Two of a Kind

I feel as though I have been in a blogging slump lately, mostly due to the fact that all I do is spend time at my computer so it's the last thing I want to do when the day is done. I haven't had a shortage of things to take pictures of though that is for sure. Lexi has found a new favorite spot in the house. She puts her front paws up on a storage cube/end table that we have in front of the window and stares out at the neighbor dogs from there. When she is out in the yard she can usually be found sitting or running along the neighbor dogs fences. Lately she has started whining really loud I guess because she wants to meet her fencemates face-to-face. This window is the perfect view to Hooch (our name for him because he looks just like the dog in the movie Turner & Hooch) and the weiner dogs yards. Lexi must be thinking it is heaven to have such a fantastic view to their yards. Arielle was happy to participate the other day too. The photos are just too cute!

~Momma to Bug~

Do you see the resemeblance?

Arielle has recently decided that she likes to dress up as Hannah Montana! I guess she found out who she is from one of the older kids at her school and when they took her school pictures they had Hannah Montana dress ups! Now she asks me if she can dress up like her at home so we root through her closet until she sees something that resembles Hannah Montana clothes. When I first asked her what type of clothes are Hannah Montana dress ups she told me a soft coat. Every outfit she chooses now has a coat of some sort. One day she told Zak she was dressed up like Hannah Montana and I told her, tell him what she is {instead of Rocker Chic} she said "A State"!

~Momma to Bug~

Funny Faces!

Arielle wanted to show everyone her funny faces! I discovered that she's not at all camera shy...




We don't like to get bored around here!

Doesn't it look like Lexi is wearing a tiarra? Well she's not! It's a craft that Arielle made and hung up in the window. Lexi just happened to be sitting in front of it when I took her picture. This is definitely Lexi's favorite spot in the house. Actually both of the dogs love it here at this window in the study. We bought a dog bed to put in this very spot before Lexi was even around. When Lexi was a little puppy she would make herself fit on the bed with Sierra like this...

The Looking Glass

Tonight as I was tucking Arielle into bed, the Monster came into her room. We knew Lexi was in there because she immediately started putting her big wet nose all over us to let us know she was there. This made Arielle and I giggle then we had the following brief conversation which just filled my heart with pure, sweet goodness:

Momma: Are you sad that we got Lexi? Or are you happy?

Bug: Why?

Momma: Because she chews on us and knocks you down and sometimes she's not a good girl.

Bug: Yes but when she is good we are happy!

If only I could see the world through her EYES and make all of the bad stuff dissapear.

These pictures were taken right after we got Lexi when she was 3-4 months old and before she weighed MORE than Arielle. Knock downs back then were just fun and games and the monster hadn't reared it's ugly {but oh so cute} head yet!

Teachers live in classes, not houses

Arielle had her first day in the intermediate classroom at her preschool today and to my amazement she handled it like a pro! I am so proud of her for not asking to hold blankie when we got to school and not crying or holding onto me when I left. I know I am probably jinxing myself but it seems as though she is getting more and more used to change in her life. I can't even describe how proud of her that I am today. She said something really funny to me tonight as I was tucking her into bed...we were talking about her first day and naming all of her teachers when she told me that "teachers live in classes, they don't live in houses." So I asked her, "you don't think that teachers go home after the kids leave and come back in the morning?" and she said, "no, they don't go home because they stay in classes." Too funny!

Not so hot chocolate

It was a great day today!
After a three day weekend, I got to spend half of my first day "back to work" at home with Arielle. It was just what we both needed as I had been busy cleaning house all weekend and didn't give her all the attention that she deserved. We had a bbq on Labor Day {believe it or not but I forgot to take pictures} and the weather couldn't have been more perfect. Like they say in Colorado, if you don't like the weather wait an hour and it'll change. We woke up this morning and it felt like fall. The high of the day was at least twenty degrees cooler than yesterday but it was a refreshing change.
In celebration of the changing seasons, Arielle and I decided to make hot chocolate...it was her first time ever drinking hot chocolate! Actually, it was more like lukewarm "hot" chocolate since she is so sensitive to hot stuff in her mouth but none-the-less she loved every sip of it.

A little bit of the past and the present

I found these baby pictures of my girl and I just had to share them. They were on the internal memory of my camera and were a nice surprise for me to see! I can't wait to get them in prints so I can do one final scrapbook page of when she was a baby. I think she had just turned one around the time of this picture. Isn't she adorable?
The No-Thumb-Sucking is going well this week...she is up to six stickers! We have gotten Arielle out of the habit of bringing blankie everywhere we go. We let her have it for naps {which have been too little and few lately} and bedtime so who knows if she has actually put an end to her habit once and for all but I know she is trying very hard. Zak and I think it's great that we actually get to see her entire face and her expressions now when she is in the car and on the couch instead of a blankie attached to her face. I'm actually quite amazed at how easy it has been to "detach" her from Blankie but I really hope that taking it away from her doesn't take away a part of her.