Pumpkin Carving

Saturday morning was pumpkin carving time! Thank goodness trick-or-treating isn't until tonight because we were too busy with parties, illness, etc. to get this done during the week.

This had to be the easiest year so far, as both girls loved digging in and pulling out the guts. They both designed their own faces, so pretty much M&M Dad and I just had to carve. Even clean-up is easy because we chuck the guts into the woods to feed the deer. I'm sure the city would not approve, but we only ever feed the deer at Halloween, and it always draws the big bucks into the backyard.

(Starshine's hair is still a little green from her witch costume yesterday...)

(I'm not fond of the Santa shirt on Halloween, but I don't believe in interfering with my independent preschooler's sense of style unless it is REALLY bad...)
It was a lot of fun, but we missed having Auntie and Uncle here to carve with us...

The perfect attendence dream is over...

Starshine has been super proud of getting perfect attendance through first grade. So, I knew a meltdown was coming when I got the call Tuesday afternoon that she had a fever. She automatically had to stay home for 24 hours, but M&M Dad and I cringed because so many people at work have been out for days with the flu that we were planning for the rest of the week. Well, she was very upset that she was going to miss school, but even more upset at the potential of missing some very important social events, including a party at Jr. Princess's school, a field trip, a party at her school, a slumber party on Friday, and trick-or-treating.

Well, our little tough girl had a teeny fever with a teeny cough and a teeny headache. By the next day she was feeling fine and went back to school on Thursday. I sure hope this is our version of the flu this year.

Funny thing is I had just gotten my flu shot at work an hour before the call, so I was cheering the little vaccine into action as I drove to Starshine's school.

Simple Pleasures

This scene just made me smile...

Today's project is to turn the girls two bedrooms into a sleeping room and a play room. You may remember that we attempted this about a year ago (at their request) and then reverted back to separate rooms because Jr. Princess wouldn't be quiet at night and drove Starshine nuts. Well, Jr. Princess is MUCH better about going to sleep at night now, and they want to try again. So, M&M Dad and I are placing bets on how long this lasts...

I'm drafting Jr. Princess for my FF team...

Jr. Princess is a natural at field goal kicking - who knew??

I almost interrupted by saying, "Hey! Watch out for the blinds!" when I remembered I HATE those blinds. I have new curtains waiting to go up as soon as we get our new patio doors.

Starshine's Special Day 2009

Woops - we got so busy this weekend we forgot to post about Starshines's Special Day on Friday.
After we sent Jr. Princess off to daycare, here is what Starshine chose:

1.Breakfast - A fantastically huge, "O" shaped pancake filled with berry sauce

2. A trip to Target to pick out treats for her trip to the movies

3. Playing baseball outside with Dad

She may write left-handed, but she bats mainly right-handed. M&M Dad was checking out her switch-hitting skills, and she was thrilled to find out she is special because she can hit from both sides...

4. Nail polish

5. For lunch: PB&J, olives, and chips with guacamole

6. Off to the mall to see a 3-D movie: "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs." She had a HUGE coke, along with the peanut butter cups and Dots she picked out at Target. (Doesn't M&M Dad look like Drew Carey with his 3D glasses???)

7. Shopping at Claire's to spend the rest of Auntie and Uncle's birthday gift card. She was soooo sweet picking out "Big Sis" and "Lil Sis" necklaces to share with Jr. Princess. (Totally melted my heart)

8. Then, her super healthy, salmon loving body couldn't handle the treat overload from the movie. She decided to postpone going out to dinner to another day (Snuffy's on Sunday) in exchange for a quiet picnic dinner in front of the tv at home.

M&M Dad and I were both surprised that she chose the movie. Ever since last year's trip to Nickelodeon Adventure at Mall of America, she has been asking non-stop about when she can go again. But, during this last week she changed her mind to the movie - which was fine with us considering neither of us are very good at spinning rides anymore....

We all had a great time!

Jr. Princess's Special Day 2009

Last year we started the tradition of letting each kid have a special day in October when their school was closed. The premise is that they can make all of the choices for the day (within reason) and have some quality two-parent time without the other sibling.

Monday was Jr. Princess's turn because her daycare was closed for teacher training. So, after Starshine left on the school bus, here is what a day in the life of Jr. Princess looks like:

• Blueberry muffin for breakfast
• A trip to the indoor play place, where she was excited to find one of her school friends

• A delicious Fruit Roll-up

• Home for a lunch of hot dog, strawberries, Cheetos, and orange soda
• No official naptime, but instead cuddling on the couch with Mom and Dad watching The Brady Bunch
• And then outside to play in the snow. Who knew that we would get 3-4" of snow that day! M&M Dad and I thought for sure she would pick to go swimming, but this freak early snow was too tempting. First up was building our snowman:

• Followed by sledding in the backyard...

• Trying out the kiddie cross country skis from Grandpa M (a huge hit!)...

• A woods walk, and some well-earned hot chocolate
• A long bit on uninterrupted computer game time
• And, after we picked up Starshine, dinner at Culvers.

It was a lot of fun, and she was all smiles the whole day. I love how it's the little joys in life that really make our kids smile! She's already asking when her next special day is going to be. It's great to spend quality time with one kid so you really get to see their personality and hear what they have to say.

Needless to say, Starshine is busy planning her big day scheduled for Friday.

A Beautiful Fall Day....

We woke up this morning to 27 degrees and a fresh coating of snow - yikes! Well, that doesn't stop us from our soccer games - but unfortunately it did stop the Turtle team Jr. Princess was supposed to play against. We chanted "Turtles are Wimps!" all the way to Starshine's game. I took this picture just to capture the ridiculousness of it.

There was a lot of slip-sliding around, followed by some well deserved hot chocolate when we got home.

We girls are on our own this weekend as M&M Dad is off camping with the boys in Wisconsin. Needless to say, we think they are crazy for camping on a cold, snowy weekend, but it's no skin off our back We have decided to sensibly camp in our own basement, while watching a movie and eating some delicious popcorn. Aaahhh, it's toasty warm in here!

Starshine's First Marathon

Today's exciting marathon day started at the crack of dawn so we could catch the bus. We could have met the Y down at the race, but Jr. Princess was SUPER excited to take the bus...

After the bus dropped the kids off at the 25 mile mark of the marathon, they took Jr. Princess, me and Grandma L down to the finish line. There, Jr. Princess hopped in the jogging stroller with M&M Dad (who luckily got to bypass the bus ride with Grandpa L) and backtracked to find a pace to cheer for Starshine. She spent lots of time yesterday crafting this fabulous sign (Go Starshine!), which we had to blur out on the blog for Internet safety...

A few minutes later along came our running super star! M&M Dad and Jr. Princess got to wave to her several times as he tried to run along the race route.

We are so proud of her. She ran the whole way without stopping and had a blast. Afterwards she made this cute sign at the CNN Fit tent: "Starshine: I ran 1.2 miles!"

After a medal ceremony and lots of fun snacks, there was a super bonus - the girls' first celebrity sighting. Our family LOVES watching The Biggest Loser, and after the race, Jillian was there! We had front row seats and the girls were thrilled.

First Soccer Goal

Starshine scored her very first soccer goal!

I don't have any pictures because I was at Jr. Princess's game, but apparently a throw-in went over her head towards the goal, and she took off and scored. After it happened, M&M Dad said she kind of stood there in disbelief, but now she's definitely excited.

Great Job Starshine!

Marathon Training

Starshine's YCare is participating in an awesome program with CNN this fall. They have running club after school 2 days a week and are also encouraged to track their running at home. The goal is to run 25 miles during the first month of school, and then on Sunday, she will run the last 1.2 miles of the Twin Cities Marathon to complete her month-long marathon.

Well, there are prizes involved so Starshine has been SUPER goal-oriented, and is definitely going to make it. Tonight, because it was pouring rain all day, M&M Dad let her use the treadmill for the very first time. Up until today the family rule was "don't touch the treadmill - EVER," so this was like the tasting of forbidden fruit! She was soooooo excited. Here she is...


Her YCare leader says she's doing great. Yesterday she ran 13 minutes without stopping, even lapping some of the older boys. She clearly got M&M Dad's running genes and not mine :).

We can't wait to go cheer for her on Sunday!