Clueless Mom Moment

So I had a few moments in the kitchen this evening, waiting for M&M Dad to arrive home for dinner, so I decided to check my email. I opened the latest edition of Starshine's school newsletter and scrolled through boring announcements: book fair dates, blah, blah, blah... Then...

Student Council - 2nd grade - Mrs. XXXXXX class - Starshine

Huh?

Me - "Starshine - you're in student council???"
Starshine - "yeah, I told you that"
Me - "No you didn't"
Starshine - "Yeah, remember when we had elections in class?"

Um - ok, but the way she described the election it sounded like a mock election for election day. Seriously, they send home all kinds of useless paperwork. You think they would send home some sort of "You're daughter is in student council" note. I wonder what else I'm going to learn next week at conferences...

Separate Fun on Saturday

This Saturday we ended up having separate fun with the girls.

The day started with a trip to Home Depot for more caulk (I am about to go postal on our shower where every time I caulk it ends up peeling right off...). It was Kid Project day, so the girls got to make cute trivets. Though, every kid that showed up at the table said, "what's a trivet?" Home Depot needs to contemporize a little...

Then, I took Jr. Princess with me on a volunteer driving trip to a kids theater. The kid we were supposed to drive cancelled at the last minute (as in the minute I showed up at her house), so Jr. Princess and I went by ourselves and had lots of fun.

Starshine and M&M Dad ended up biking (because it was GORGEOUS out) to Wendy's to use her free Frosty coupons from Halloween, followed by baseball at the park, and home for some Wii fun. Now, M&M Dad and I are definitely out of Wii practice, because it is our "we need something to do when it is cold and dark here" hobby, but who knew M&M Dad was this out of practice...

Jr. Princess and I got home just in time to see her first victory at bowling over M&M Dad (who even admits he didn't let her win). We thought it was definitely worthy of putting a picture on the blog.

Of course, Jr. Princess then had to play. And seriously, with no help from me, her score beat M&M Dad's, too!

We then had a delicious dinner at Good Earth. We ordered the edamame appetizer, which is the girls current favorite food item. I love that they get seriously EXCITED over a green vegetable. My entree came with a little pumpkin cake for dessert, which all the girls loved, so we will definitely be making something pumpkin-y at home soon!

Happy Halloween!

Saturday was a long day waiting for it to get dark. I thought the girls were going to explode with anticipation. After an early dinner, we headed to the bathroom to start getting ready.

This year the girls wanted to be matching witches, which worked for me considering Starshine was a witch last year. So, we only had to buy another witch hat, some green hair spray, and some face paint. I crafted another black skirt out of scrap fabric, and luckily we already had dark coats and gloves, because it was a bit chilly. We bypassed the black spider and black sparkly tights in favor of two pairs of pants under the skirts.

I think the black lipstick really completed the ensembles. Here they are posing with their "I'll get you my pretty" faces...

Our little social butterfly Starshine, of course, got invited to go trick-or-treating with a friend up the street. So M&M Dad took the girls out for round one as I handed out candy. It was pretty cute because it turned out the friend was a witch, too.

Meanwhile...

Last year Auntie and I noticed a very smart neighbor up the street sitting in her driveway, by a fire pit, relaxing, handing out candy. Genius! So this year I had M&M Dad light a fire in our driveway while I was dressing up the girls. Then, I sat toasty warm, listening to my Ipod, and watching the cute neighbor kids run around like sugar-crazed maniacs. This was WAY better than going up and down the stairs of our split level all night. I was a little reluctant to give up my spot to M&M Dad as the girls circled back to head up the street the other way, but I did have fun running after them trick-or-treating.

A fun night, for sure!

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!