I can't blink

Or another week will be gone! Seriously, I can't believe how fast they go - it amazes me every time!!

It's now Monday night and I just don't know where the last week went! I know we had gymnastics Monday night and I really have no idea about Tuesday through Thursday. I think we just hung out at home those evenings although they must have been quite uneventful because I just can't think of anything noteworthy!!!

Friday night, Tony invited a few people from his work over to play cards. I called it a night by around 1:00 - they were going strong until about 3 in the morning. We were all VERY lazy Saturday. I was just plain old tired. Tony was a bit more hungover than tired and Hannah just loves the days that she gets to stay in her jammies!! She and I got dressed later that afternoon and we went out shopping for a little bit.

Sunday, we went to Maci's 4th Birthday Party. Happy Birthday Maci (it's actually the 28th). I can't believe she's 4 already!! They just had a family party this year over at Shelly's dad's house. It was nice. Here's a few happy birthday pictures.

And here she is opening some presents.

And look who came to Maci's birthday....SANTA!!!!

It was a good test as to what's to come in a few months. I think we'll do much better this year! When he first got there, Hannah noticed him right away and said, "Santa's here"...with a very cautious watch over him. After dinner, she asked me to get her cup which I knew was at the table, but because he was sitting there, she wasn't feeling brave enough to go get it. During cake, he was across from her and they began talking and she got comfortable enough to start rattling off her list to him!!! And finally, while Maci was opening her presents, Hannah actually sat on his lap for this picture. And she's been talking about him since. Tonight in the car, she informed me that Santa was building her Barbie's Diamond Castle - OK, so how could she NOT get that now??? Does anyone know if that is something more than a movie??? I guess I need to hit Toy's R Us to make sure that he delivers the thing he's "building for her"!!!

And here's Baby Reece - she's getting so big and she's so stinking cute!!

And how about these cool pumpkins Shelly's dad carved?

And then Hannah and Maci got dressed up in Maci's new princess dresses. That was fun until the fact that Hannah didn't get a nap happend. It was 3:30 and time to go!!! She napped for a whole 5 minutes in the car. She tried laying down when she got home, but she didn't sleep.

I got home from grocery shopping and Dawn, Kendal and John were over. Hannah was eating celery like it was going out of style which was totally weird because I didn't know she ate celery at all!!! They hung out at our house for a while. Here they are coloring with Hannah.

Then that was about it. Today, work went super fast and then Hannah had gymnastics again tonight. That continues to go very well. She has finally mastered hopping on one leg, although she can only do one side, not the other yet. She's been practicing at home - a lot - she's got such determination. If she wants to do something, she will work at it until she can do it. She doesn't have a lot of patience as she's failing, but she keeps trying until she gets it!! She now likes doing the activites on the bars at gymnastics because "Miss Kim (her teacher) showed her how to do it so it don't hurt her belly" and she's discovered it's actually fun going upside down!!!

Fall Fun Fest

Today we went to an Fruit Farm in Chesterland for their Fall Fun Fest! Thanks Erin, for the suggestion!

We had a perfect fall weather day. Cool, but sun-galore! We got there around 11 this morning and took a hayless wagon ride over to the "fun fest" grounds.

Then Hannah got to check out all the slides in the "hay barn" as she called it. That was fun, but she was a little skiddish, suprisingly. There were alot of kids in there and some were playing kind of rough.

Then we went through the corn mazes. There was one for little kids and another one for everyone. That was fun, although not very challenging! This brought back memories of walking through Grandpa's corn field a few months ago, but this one actually had a path to walk along.

Then Hannah rode on the pedal tractors - she got a blue one. (Sorry, Dad, that was the only one available at the time!!)

Oh, and Dad, this one is for you - check out this cool thing to climb on and there's a slide out the back end of it!!

We took another wagon ride pulled by two horses and then we headed into the woods for some more big slides and treehouses. That was sure fun and the slides were very impressive!!

Then Hannah took a pony ride. We weren't quite sure how she'd do, but she loved it! She kept saying, "it's kinda bumpy" as we walked along. The pony's name was Blackjack and she really enjoyed riding!

Lastly, she painted a pumpkin. She seemed to have fun with that too, but she was getting tired.

She ate two apples and really had a good time!! I'm so glad we went.

In other news, Hannah has a serious obsession with balloons. Probably because I wouldn't let her have one for the first 2 years of her life since I have a weird phobia of them around little kids. Anyway, a few months ago, she went to church with my mom one Sunday and they did a balloon launch. Well, Hannah thought that was the most disturbing thing - all those kids let their balloons go up into the sky. Hannah took her's home that day with her and carried it around all day. She really gets quite attached to every balloon she gets. Anyway, she tells this story all the time. So last night, we were out to dinner and the waitress asked if she wanted a balloon - well, duh, of course she did! So I asked Hannah if we should let it go like the kids at church and she instantly broke out into serious tears!!! I had to calm her down and promise we wouldn't let the balloon go. She made Daddy hold it tight inside the car the entire ride home!! Crazy. So anyway, I went grocery shopping after we got home from the fall fest thing and I got a call. Hannah woke up from her nap to find her treasured balloon losing it's flying power and wilting along the ground. DEVISTATION!! Like in a very serious tantrum-throwing kind of way. She was seriously heartbroken. They called me and in hysterics all she could tell me was "My Balloon" I had to go to the party store and buy her another one. Yes, I got a mylar one this time that should hopefully get us through the week!! Crisis averted!

Week's worth of blog

Well another week slipped by with no updates. Sorry for those of you who actually come here to see what's going on. As you all know already, I do a terrible job of staying current, so here's the last week's worth of our life.

Work is going better and I think we had a good week last week. Now that 8 days have passed, I really don't remember it being really great or really bad! We went to gymnastics last Monday night - that was good. Hannah loved hopping down the tumbling track! I really don't remember much about Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday, we had our first try at a neighborhood girl babysitter. It worked out great, except for when I first left - Hanna cried. Then Tony stopped home to change after work, which kept the crying going, but she was fine shortly after. Tony went to a concert and I had dinner with the other managers from work, so it was just a little over 3 hours. The girl's name is Gloria and she's 15. She does a great job with the other neighborhood kids and now Hannah's old enough that I thought I'd try it. Best part - she's only $3.00 an hour (per kid)!!! I couldn't beleive it!! What a bargain! I think we'll be using her again for sure! Friday we just had pizza at home and Dawn came over to visit for a little bit.

Saturday, I made banana pancakes for breakfast. That's becoming a big favorite around here, besides, we need a break from waffles!! I cleaned the house and did laundry and after Hannah's nap, we went to Anna's 4th birthday party. They always have a costume party for her birthday and so Hannah got to dress up:

She loves being Cinderella! There were many other princesses there - 2 Snow White's, Little Mermaid and one other Cinderella. Hannah had a meltdown during presents because she watched for as long as she could, but then couldn't take it anymore because she wanted to open presents! Tough lesson I guess! She's quite anxious for her birthday to come now!

Saturday night, Tony stayed home with Hannah while I went to play cards. I ended up placing 3rd this week! Finally - it was nice to do well and win a little money!

Sunday, we woke up and went to breakfast and then to Church. I did my grocery shopping and we had dinner outside on the deck. What a great weather weekend it was!! So nice to get to eat outside one last time, the only catch was it started getting dark as we finished!

Another noteworthy item was that I finished Hannah's quilt during Desparate Housewives!! It's officially DONE! But, no pictures!!! I'm saving it for a surprise for everyone to see for Christmas! I like it and I sure hope Hannah loves it!

Last night was a rough one. For some reason, I didn't sleep that great and then Hannah woke up crying around 4:00. I guess she had a bad dream, so I comforted her for a little and went back to bed. Just as I was falling back to sleep, she yelled out "NO" and started crying again. I went back in there and she said, "I have to go potty, Mommy". Did I mention we stopped using Pull-up's at bedtime a couple weeks ago?? Well, she had already wet the bed. So I took her potty and then stripped and changed her bed. We were all very awake by then (4:30) and she screamed not to go back to bed. I was going to try to be tough and make her go to bed, but she seemed really scared and just wanted to go to our bed, so I gave it....I sure hope that wasn't the wrong move that I will regret! She has never slept in our bed - ever, but she did at least sleep the rest of the night - glad someone did!!!

Tonight was gymnastics again. They practiced flipping around the uneven bars - she didn't like tha so well. She was afraid to go upside down. She did great with everything else though and is improving each week with taking direction and listening. I think this is going to be so good for her and she really loves it!

Pumpkin time of year

Well, fall is really here. It's been really cool outside and we've really enjoyed the great sleeping weather - especially since I'm less stressed this past week and can actually SLEEP!! And oh, how great it feels to get a good, solid night sleep and wake up feeling rested! So anyway, I had to (reluctantly) turn the furnace on Saturday morning....it was pretty nippy in the house!

I went into work for a little bit on Saturday morning to try to do some catching up. I got home and tried to find a new place to go for dinner. We got showered and then headed out.

First, we stopped to get Hannah a pumpkin! She saw them the other day and asked Tony if she could go get one, so we went to have her pick out her own pumpkin this year!





She cried when we got in the car because she wanted ALL of them! We had to explain how you don't get everything you want - that was a fun lesson!

We went down to Tremont to dinner at a place called Solkolowski's. It was on Rachel Ray's Tasty Travels. It was served cafeteria style, which we didn't expect, but the food was really home cooked and very good. We got home and hung out.

Hannah got to wear her new Dora jammies and she loves her new princess slippers!


I worked on Hannah's quilt until about 12:30 and called it a night.

We got up Sunday and had breakfast and then I went shopping. We had a neighborhood girl, Gloria, come over to visit for a few minutes because she's going to babysit for us this week. So crazy having a young girl come babysit!! It'll be so nice though having someone so close - and she's only $3.00 an hour for one kid!!!! Can't beat that!

I finished quilting Hannah's quilt and sewed the binding on while she napped. Now I just have to hand stitch the binding on and it'll be FINISHED!!! It turned out pretty good - there's a few things I don't like about it, but she'll love it!

We had burgers on the grill for dinner and after dinner, Hannah said, "Daddy, thank you for cooking dinner!" She's just the coolest kid! She is very polite - always says please, thank you and excuse me! So cool. She's really getting into the Spanish words for things - she knows many colors now.

Anyway, back to work tomorrow. Gymnastics after work and then pretty much normal stuff until Thursday - I have dinner with the other managers from work and Tony's got a concert. That's why Gloria's coming over to babysit.

That's about it!!

Why

This was an actual (almost verbatim) conversation in the car tonight!

Hannah: Mommy, blue is azul and red is rojo

Me: Very good, how do you say green in Spanish?

Hannah: I don't know

Me: It's verde

Hannah: I don't want to say that

Me: Why not?

Hannah: Because I don't want to

Me: Buy why?

Hannah: Because I don't know how to say that green

Me: It's verde

Hannah: I don't want to say it

Me: How come?

Hannah: Because I don't want to

Me: Why?

Hannah: Mommy, why do you keep saying why too many times?

Me: (After a thunderous laughter) Welcome to my world Miss Hannah!!!

She is a card, I tell you! And then tonight after dinner, she was watching Cinderella like this:

The lei and the feather covered princess shoes! She's just playing the part, I guess!

By the way, work is going MUCH better this week so far...I may have gotten some sanity back!