What an "ice" time!

Meg got an early break this week. She got Wednesday and Thursday off of preschool to begin her holiday break. School's been cancelled for the past two days due to ice. I must admit, I've been hoping for some delays myself (which would still result in preschool being cancelled for her), but I definitely haven't wanted the WHOLE day off, because those have to be made up later. Two days to make up is even worse, but oh well, we've had the days, so we've enjoyed them!

On Wednesday, we were relatively lazy in the morning, then we finally got motivated to go out and get some errands done. The great thing about living in town is that the roads are perfect! :) She got some much needed new tennis shoes, then she got to go to the babysitter's to play for a short time while I went to the hospital to help out Greg, since he had to take his mother there earlier in the day and she ended up being admitted. We rounded out the evening with a haircut, or I should say trim. Meg refuses to get an actual hair cut. Her goal is to have hair as long as Rapunzel's, so cutting it defeats that goal. The ratty ends, however, need a trim periodically, so I insist on taking her to Great Clips every so often for a trim. It's all about the way I word things. Yes, she's smart, but I'm clever!

Today, I was shocked with the cancellation call. Again, we took our time with breakfast, played Barbies for a while and even counted all the change in her piggy bank. I ended up rolling up nearly $80 in change, and yes, that is A LOT of change to roll! We finally got ready and headed to the mall, via clear, unicy major roadways to finish up some Christmas shopping and see Santa, with letter in hand. There was virtually no line for Santa today! Thanks Dr. Gellert (G-C Superintendent)! Meg gave him a big hug, crawled up in his lap, translated her letter to him, and also told him about the American Girl doll she wants. He knew all about American Girl dolls so they had a nice conversation about which one he should bring her. (Bitty Twins, which he is bringing were not mentioned, so I hope there's not great disappointment next week!) She also thanked him for the letter that he sent her. She put her letter in his mailbox, we paid our $17, yes, that's not a typo, $17, for a 5x7 photo of him and her together and off we went!

Spelling Surprises/Game Time

Lately Meg has surprised me with her spelling talents, and this morning during breakfast I had future visions of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. She announced "Mommy! Guess what? I can spell cup!" An easy C-V-C word, so I asked her to go. Here's how it played out:

Meg: K?

Me: No, what other letter makes that sound?

Meg: C!

Me: Right, what's next?

Meg: Putting her head down on the table-I hear her making the short u sound over and over, when finally she pops her head up and says U!

Me: Very good.

Meg: Putting her head down again, but then coming back up and saying, what's the word again?

Me: Cup, would you like it used in a sentence?

Meg: No, putting her head back down and sounding out each sound, then finally telling me P! C-U-P spells cup!

Me: You're right!

She also announced to me a few days ago that she can spell "door." Now this is a new word, that came out of the blue, so I had no idea where she'd learned this. I asked her how and she proudly said D-O-O-R! When I asked where she learned it, she told me it was on the light in the car. Yep...she's right. It's there. Good observation Meg.

As for game time, it was quite rainy and windy today so we played a few games today. We started off playing Don't Break the Ice. The first two times she went first and lost. (Being competitive like I am, I don't just let her win) :) Then she wanted me to go first. Good strategy, but by a strange fluke, she still lost and was not very happy. Tears started flowing, she laid face first on the floor and cried. I asked her if she lost a basketball game if she was going to do the same thing. That's when she told me she wasn't going to play basketball. Hmmm...we'll see! I gave her my best pep talk and she agreed to play again, with a little more strategy. This time she won (and for real I might add!) Atta girl! We also split two games of Candy Land and gave up on a never ending game of Chutes and Ladders. All in all, a fun day!

Friday Night Fun

Greg went to a birthday party tonight for a little bit, so it's just the kiddos and me! I decided to have some messy fun with them. We made oobleck and silly putty. They had fun making a big mess, and did a pretty good job of keeping it on the table so clean up wasn't too bad. I did have to create an assmebly line of sorts to clean all of them up, but it worked!

A Dream Come True!

The day finally arrived that Miss Meg had been waiting for....Girls Night Out, as she started calling it. Our trip to Disney on Ice with Mamaw, Aunt Lisa, Claire and Kate was last night. We'd been counting down the days for quite some time now. She was so excited all day! Beth said that she told her she couldn't eat much for lunch because we were going out for a special dinner and for snack she only took a small package of fruit snacks. She usually has a pretty "hefty snack" (Marcia and Libby, she sooooo has our genes! HA!) then has another snack when we get home, but yesterday she only ate the fruit snacks.

We go to the Spaghetti Factory with what we thought would be plenty of time, but we did have to wait a while. There were about 10,000 high school aged choir kids there. Maybe not that many, but Lisa and I were amazed at their outfits. We commented several times that our daughters WILL NOT leave the house looking like that someday. I'm sure Mother will love watching us eat our words someday. Ahhhh....anyways! Once we finally got seated, we had an amazing waiter who got us in and out so we didn't miss a second of the show. Meg told us that it was "the best meal I've EVER eaten!" She, Claire and Kate shared lasagna and ate a lot of Lisa's fettucini too, and of course, her favorite bread and butter!

She was totally amazed by the show. She sat in awe and would yet out as the sets were changing what was coming up next if she knew it. There was also many times that she was singing along, but her favorite part, of course, had something to do with the princesses. She thought Ariel was just beautiful! At the intermission, (or what should be called "empty your wallet for sugar time") we dropped a whopping $30 for three bags of cotton candy. Don't get me wrong, I realize sugar is pricey these days, but good heavens! I could practically invest in an entire sugar cane field for that amount. I forgot though, it wasn't just spun sugar, it also included a cheesy plastic crown with Mickey Mouse ears....now that made it worth at least another $5! HA! Oh well.....the girls were happy and having fun, right? Oh....and they were spending the night at Mamaw and Papaw's so who cares if they were all jacked up on sugar???

Posing before dinner

Why yes, they are always this sweet and loving to one another! HA HA!

Mickey and Minnie arrive

Those smiles are worth $30 bucks, aren't they? :)

Holiday Preparations

Meg got her letter from Santa this week. She was so excited, but also had many questions. How does he know my address? How does he know the boys' names? Can we really put a carrot on the roof for Ruldolph? And they go on and on and on.... I really feel like she's way too intuitive to buy into this whole Santa thing for too many years. We did already have the talk about how she doesn't need to be scared on Christmas Eve night. To refresh memories (or fill you in, if necessary) she was TERRIFIED last year to go to bed that night. She just couldn't get over the fact that some fat, strange looking guy could zip down our chimney and come into our house. If you think about it, it makes sense, at least to a preschooler. Could any weirdo do this, anytime? Anyways, I've already started talking it up this year so we don't have near the drama this year that there was last year. There was a point in time that I thought she would stay awake all night and then I really had no idea what I was gonna do. That darn Dr. Spock never put that in his dumb parenting guide! HA!



She sat down at the table to write her letter back to Santa. For those that know Meghan personaly, she has many, many words to share. Her writing will be the same, I think. **Wonder where she gets that????** I just loved her all of her ideas, but it would have taken the next two weeks to write them all, so I helped her condense them. Here is her letter (the translation follows):

Dear Santa,

How are the reindeers? I want a Puppy Knows Your Name.

**She wanted to ask how Mrs. Claus was, and to tell the reindeers to watch out so that Greg won't shoot them. She also wanted to include everything on the list that she and Greg made a few weeks ago. That's where I stepped in and helped her condense!**

Thursday is our special girl night with Mamaw, Aunt Lisa, Claire and Kate. We're headed to the Spaghetti Factory and Disney on Ice. We're definitely looking forward to a fun-filled night! I'll be sure to post and update!

All Grown Up

Meg had quite the outfit today. She had a new skirt to wear, so when she was finished dressing I asked her if she wanted to wear her brown shoes or her black shoes. She took my hand and told me to come with her to her shoe closet. **I knew she had something else in mind right then!** She asked if she could wear her boots with the skirt. I made a rule when she got those silly boots that she could ONLY wear them with jeans (because I didn't want her wearing them with sweatpants, which I could sooooo see happening), so she proceeded to tell me that the skirt was blue, kinda like blue jeans. I really couldn't argue and it was 6:30 AM, not worth the battle. She looked way too grown up though!

One quick funny to share too. Grandpa came over on Monday night for dinner. Afterwards, we were all told that we had to play a new game that was "LOTS OF FUN!" It was something about hiding a bone from a puppy that she loves to play at the sitter's. Greg, Grandpa and I all had to sit around in a circle passing around a stuffed animal chanting something while she hid under a blanket. She was having a blast and cracking up, but then all of a sudden she popped up from under the blanket and yells out, "Hang on and don't move, I gotta poop!" She surely didn't want the fun to end just because nature called. HA HA!

Hibernation

Meg ate like a little pig tonight. She just kept eating and eating. When I asked her why she was so hungry, here was her response. "Well Mommy, I'm getting ready to hibernate like a bear, so I have to eat a bunch of food. I'll sleep and sleep and when I wake up I"ll be really hungry." HA! It is really cold out today and going to bed for a couple of months sounds like a pretty good idea! I'd like to wake up just in time for Spring Break. :)

American Idol

Meg loves singing. We now carry around a microphone in the car with us so she can sing along into her microphone. It doesn't really do anything, except make her feel more famous. HA! Taylor Swift is probably her favorite CD and I must admit that I am relieved at the fact that she will now listen to some "real" music. We still listen to kid's songs, her Jesus music CD and the one that is fairy tale stories occasionally, but at least there is some variety with adult music now. :) We had to wait on Greg the other night for few minutes, so I recorded her with my phone. Not the best images, but you get the idea! Here she is singing her heart out along with Taylor.....

Fit for a Princess!

Tonight was the night of all nights for Miss Meghan....we attended a Princess Tea Party. It was marvelous. As soon as Halloween was over, we began counting down for this big event. It's been a big debate all week as to what she was going to wear, but we finally came to an agreement. It's rainy and cold so that was a bit of a factor. She did go wearing her crown so she was satisfied. :)

When we first got there we were greeted with a few beautiful princesses, Jasmine (who she was really hoping would be there), Aurora, and Belle. We had a chance to visit with some friends, watch a magician make a bunny out of a balloon, and then get a picture with a very pretty Cinderella, otherwise known as our friend Michelle. Then we ate (pigs in a blanket, chips, carrots, celery, grapes, pineapple, some finger sandwiches and cupcakes for dessert). Meg was the first to finish her plate at our table and probably would have gone back for seconds had we not been distracted for the next activity.....hair, makeup and nail time! She got all made up and just LOVED that part. She also got to listen to a story told by the fairy godmother. Since she just loves stories and listened so intently and answered all the fairy godmother's questioned, she received a pink feather boa as a prize. (Gee thanks fairy godmother, are you coming tomorrow to sweep up all the pink feathers littering my house!?!?!? **wink, wink**)

This night was the ultimate for her. She kept telling me on the way home that she "definitely looked like a girly, girl now, didn't she?" HA! I told her she definitely did. When asked what her favorite part was, it was definitely getting her hair and makeup done! It was fun watching her have such a good time tonight, even if I'm not the girliest girl there ever was. How I ended up with such a girly-girl, I still don't know??? :)

Getting reading to go....

With Cinderella at the castle
Here's Jasmine!

Check out the balloon bunny!

Ta-Da!

Enjoying the princess food!

Picking out lip gloss, decisions! decisions!!

Making me up!

Striking some poses, princess style!

Not quite ready to go home, so one more pic with them all bundled up with coat on!

Can You See Me

This is the first title of the first book Meg officially read tonight all by herself. Gotta admit I'm a proud mommy! :) I picked it up a few days ago at school off of the leveled reader shelf in our library. It's a level "B." We've advanced from level "AA" (pics only) and level "A" (just one word on the page that matched the picture) to level "B." It has a couple of repetitive sentences on each page and some picture clues. It's been laying around, but when she first looked at it she told me it was too hard and that she couldn't read it. I didn't mention it again, because there is no way to talk Meg into doing something. She has to decide when SHE is ready! Tonight before bed though, she "just wanted to try to do it by herself." I knew it was a stall tactic for bed, but I was up for the challenge! She figured out all the words on the cover and was pretty excited so she just kept going, she got a little tripped up by the word "under" but figured it out.

When she finished, she looked up at me with those big brown eyes and said, "Wow Mommy! I did that all by myself!" like she couldn't believe it. That just about made my heart melt to see her being so proud of herself for such a big accomplishment. It's amazing to think what a tremendous step this is for her and how much she has grown up in just four short years. Time really does fly!

The cold is here, but Meg is warm!

Check it out! My girl is NOT gonna be cold this winter. We are on day #3 or so of it being cold and she was insistent today on getting all bundled up like this:

The babysitter told me that her preschool teacher even said that she was insistent on gettting everything back on just a certain way before she left to go back outside for pick up.

Tanner the Pooping Dog

Meghan received some money (along with the gobs and gobs of candy) for Halloween. We went to Wal-Mart the other night and I let her take her $11 that she received with her to purchase a toy. She found a Barbie toy that she just had to have and it was actually within her budget. It's Tanner, the Pooping Dog. The Barbie doll, which she's also now infatuated with, came with a dog that you can shove "food" (little brown tic-tac like things) into his mouth, then when you raise his tail, he poops them out. It even came with poop-picker-upper. It's a magnetic stick them that picks them up. A perfect pet for our house! :) I find it hard to believe that Mattel makes a toy like this that they actually leave on the shelf, but I guess parents like me that let their kid buy it and actually think it's kinda funny are what keep them in business. Now, back to helping her pick up magnetic, non-stinky dog poo!

The Muffin Man

according to Meghan, he lives on "Dirty Lane" HA! She was watching a video last night and singing along with this song. When I told her the correct words, I was, as usual, wrong. It is "Dirty Lane" that the Muffin Man lives on. Whatever!?!? :)

Finally! Halloween!

Meghan has been waiting for about two months for this day to get here. She was awake at 6:30 AM this morning. When I told her Happy Halloween as she got up, she said, "It's today? Really? Can I get my costume on and go trick or treating NOW?" HA! As tempted as I was to go start knocking on doors and waking up everyone else I could I resisted and told her we had to wait until the boys got home from school.

Our first visits were out to see the family. We visited Parker's first, then Mamaw and Papaw's and finally Grandpa's. The boys were totally amazed at the "jackpots" they kept hitting! Grandpa had a trick of his own for the kids. He had a small bowl of candy that had about 6 pieces of candy in it. He told them they could pick either one or two pieces. They looked back at us, like "Do you think it would be ok if we took two?" I knew he had waaaaay more than that for them, so I just smiled at them. Then he got up and grabbed another huge bowl that was full and said, I meant one or two handfuls! They immediately started shoveling candy into their bags.

We grabbed pizza for dinner, then went out for more trick or treating in our own neighborhood, like we really needed more candy! (In case you care....I was curious how much candy she really did get this week, so I got on the scales without it, then back on with the bag of candy. I was exactly 5.2 lbs heavier with the bag of candy. That's A LOT of candy!!!!!)

Meg was full of funny comments tonight too. Here are just a few:

*As we left home, "You don't need to worry about my name tonight Mom, just call me Dorothy all night."

*"This is definitely my favorite night!"

*After being asked by an older man, "Are you Heidi?" She came back to me and said, "Mom, why did that guy think I was hiding?" HA! She has no clue who Heidi even is!

*"Mom, look I got my favorite candy. It's the stick kind with stuff in it. You know pissy sticks? Is that it?"

As promised...

Cupcake pics...here we are in all of our cupcake glory.

And the Children's Museum update. Meg and I headed out first thing Thursday AM to kick off our Fall Break celebration. She was up at 7AM anyways, so I figured we might as well get going! When we first got there we went through the Haunted Train...never fear though, it was "friendly hours" so we were not frightened at all. The people were all very nice and the lights were on. They actually had us count the Eerie Express stickers in each room as we went through and Meg really enjoyed that game. In each room, she'd search around until she found the sticker then yell out the number. By the end, when we were up in the teens, she'd actually count all the way up to the number we had last counted out quietly to herself then yell out the next number. Her interesting way to keep track! :) At the end they had a little trinket gift shop set up and she spent her Halloween money from Grandma Bodell by purchasing a light up tiara that she insisted on wearing the rest of the day.

After the Haunted Train, we rode the carousel, then I convinced her to visit the Science Works area. She was very intrigued with a special magnet exhibit for a while, but soon asked to go back and play in some play houses she had seen near the carousel. **Sigh** I was looking forward to playing the Fall Creek Watershed area, but she just wasn't interested. I need to resign myself to the fact that she is a girly girl, whether I am or not! HA! We spent a little more time singing songs at the Playscape and then looking at a few more exhibits, then we decided to head for home, with a quick lunch detour to Chik-Fil-A. (She got a free kids' meal coupon in the Eerie Express that we thought sounded good!) All in all, it was a very fun morning/afternoon!!!

What princess doesn't love a good dig in the dirt?

Princess Meg completing a Princess puzzle

Having tea and porridge with the three bears, her favorite story to tell!
Cheese!!!!

Cupcakes and Pumpkins

We've been feeling a little artsy-fartsy around here lately. We carved pumpkins last Wednesday night. Well....the boys and I carved pumpkins. Princess Meghan was waaaay too grossed out to put her hand in the pumpkin and pull out pumpkin guts. She just looked at me and shook her head no. I told her it would be fun, but she replied, "Ewwwwwww, I'm not doing that, it's slimy!" Can you say, DIVA???? Oh well! She did pick out a not-so-easy castle scene for me to carve out for her. I managed and it actually turned out kind of neat. Of course, why wouldn't a princess want a castle scene on her pumpkin?

And, last night, I had baked cupcakes so we decorated them with frosting and any kind of Halloween sprinkle you can imagine. She was much more into that since it involved being able to lick icing off of utensils and fingers for clean up. I had a houseful of future pastry chefs, but they definitely will require quite a clean up crew if they ever get their own television show on The Food Network. I have pics of cupcake decorating too, but they haven't been uploaded yet! I'll get them on here with an update of today's events. Meg and I had a fun filled day at the Children's Museum! :) Will update soon....

A Whole Night!

Meg had a big announcement for me tonight. She has figured out how long one night is. It's one huuuuuuundredddd minutes long, isn't it? Thank goodness it's a little longer than that or I'd be one tired mommy! So funny the concept of time is for a 4 year old! Gotta love it!

Just a little fib

This last Tuesday I had to go to school for a musical....what fun!?!? (Not!) Greg took Meg to gymnastics by himself and she was ever so excited for that. I told her that I could talk him into taking my place at the musical and that I would take her to gymnastics, but she didn't like that idea, later I found out why.
When I got home close to 8:00, she was still awake. Bed time is 7:30, so victory #1 for her, she suckered him into letting her stay up juuuuuuust a liiiiittle bit later! First thing I noticed was a balloon creation. I asked her what it was and she told me it was a flower...a pretty flower just for me that she got from.....gymnastics. (Yep, she paused for just a moment) Here's the rest of the conversation:

Me: Gymnastics? Was there a clown there tonight or something?

Meg: No, Miss Wobin made it.

Me: Miss Robin makes balloons animals? I never knew that!

Meg: Uh huh! (smirk on her face)

Me: Are you sure?

Meg: Uh huh!

Me: I noticed on the Culvers sign on the way home that they had kids night tonight from 6-8 pm, you didn't your balloon there did you?

Meg: Whaaaat? How did you guess that Mommy?

She's not so good at keeping things from me! HA HA! She did tell me that she got chocolate ice cream with brownies on top and that while she ate most all of the brownies, the rest of her ice cream was in the freezer for me. How sweet of them, huh? No wonder it's better when Greg takes her by himself to gymnastics!

Tech Junkie to be...

I was getting logged onto the computer to get some school work done and Meghan asked, "Who's dot com are you going on Mommy?" HA HA! I guess she has a concept of the internet now thanks to http://www.starfall.com and http://www.pbskids.org.

Time for Fall!

Finally....cool, crisp fall air found it's way to us! I must admit, I'm glad. I love fall. Meg, not so much. Dressing in long sleeves and wearing a jacket is causing some battles right now between us, but I keep insisting and soon enough she'll realize it's a battle she won't win. It's a long cold winter so tee shirts and flip flops are gone for now!

We had a great weekend though. Friday night we headed to Rural King with some special Mamaw and Papaw time. We had a talk about how we'd see lots of toys and she wasn't going to get anything, but she could point out some things that she might like to have for Christmas. She was very well behaved and announced while strolling through the toys that she found just what she wanted....."ALL of the girl toys they had!" HA HA HA! That's should be easy shopping this year. Actually, the Christmas "I wants" have already started. She's always seeing things on tv that she's just dying to have and I've been saving the catalogs for her to start circling items.

Saturday, we headed out to Grandpa's in the morning. I was busy doing some work and she got to play in the barn with him and the horses. Papaw picked her up there after a little while and she headed off to see the Chihuahua movie with him and Claire and Kate and Aunt Lisa. After the movie, they dropped her back off at home and we headed to the boys' last football game. We even got to eat at "The Pizza Place" (aka Chicago's) for dinner. Saturday night was filled with fun in the woods with Greg and the boys showing off their skills and our ever burning campfire.

Sunday, we were treated to a yummy Sunday dinner at Mamaw's and some play time there too. It'd been a while with our crazy schedules so we sure enjoyed the food! After we left there, we headed to a nearby pumpkin patch. We spent some time lost in the corn maze and enjoyed a wagon ride out to the pumpkin patch to pick out pumpkins. After we got back home, we did a bit of fall decorating, then retreated inside for some quality Mommy and Meg time. She wanted to practice reading and do her new Barbie puzzle....again! The boys also taught her how to spell Mississippi this weekend, so I think she spelled that for me about 300 times just to make sure she had it right. I have a feeling that Miss Beth the babysitter, and all of her preschool teachers will find out that she knows how to spell it too tomorrow! HA HA!

Homework was a breeze this week by the way....just some straight lines and drawing some E's. She insisted on doing it herself after I explained it to her and she did quite well! :) That's my girl! Here are some pics from today's pumpkin patch adventure.