Morning with my Little Sweetie...

Since Analese has been having so many Daddy clingy issues, Lee decided to take her to her Adventurers meeting this morning. Mariele and I stayed home and went for a walk. We stopped by the playground on our way home. It was about 83 degrees and 92% humidity. Very sticky out! It was nice spending time with just Mariele. That is a very rare occurrence, but I think we both enjoyed it, as I'm sure Analese enjoyed the bonding time with Daddy this morning. Mariele asked for pigtails this morning, since Analese was wearing them today also. I took some photos that reminded me of some photos of Analese. Here are the pictures of Mariele today. She is 34 months old. Notice how SHORT her hair is still.




Contrast with these photos of Analese taken when she was 32 months old. She had a bit more hair, and may have been a little taller, even though she is a couple of months younger in the pictures.

Almost to Thanksgiving...and other randomness

I know I have fallen out of the regular blogging habit. Hopefully it is a temporary, end of the year busyness thing. Time will tell. Life is busy, but we are chugging along each day, becoming more and more efficient with the schoolwork and extracurriculars. Analese and Mariele are both going through a phase (led by Analese, I think) of not wanting to sleep in their room. There were middle of the night tears, and grumpy mommy and daddy. I finally told them, woe to whomever wakes me up in the middle of the night. Their solution is to come into our bedroom quietly, without waking us up. I heard them scheming last night. Analese was saying, "Now, Mariele, we have to go and sleep on the schoolroom couch. We have to be very quiet and not wake up mommy." The schoolroom is a converted sitting area that is part of of our master bedroom suite. The schoolroom couch is the boundary between master bedroom and schoolroom. To their credit, they did not wake us up. Mariele climbed in bed with us at some point in the middle of the night, but Analese slept on the schoolroom couch. I don't know how long this phase will last. It's always something.

This morning, we were experiencing major Daddy clinginess. This did not bode well when Daddy left early to go set up sound equipment at church. Analese mourned the whole time I was getting her ready about not being able to go with Daddy. They looked adorable too, in their cute outfits and boots. I wanted a picture, and I begged Analese to give me a three second long smile, and promised her that she could sulk and frown the rest of the day. This is the best I got, although Mariele was perfectly willing to cheese it up.



Yay for Thanksgiving coming up! Yay especially for next Saturday night when the kids are having a sleepover with Uncle David and Aunt Netty so we can enjoy our first ever kid-free night at a hotel EVER since having kids.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

If you can't beat em'...

Feed 'em. At least, that is the attitude we are taking about the squirrels in our yard. Besides, it gives us some great breakfast entertainment to watch the squirrels having their breakfast. We have a great view of the show from our breakfast nook window.




Our cat, Tabatha, is a lazy hunter. There is no hunger as the motivating factor. She is resting in the playset, completely oblivious to all of the squirrels scurrying around her.

Indoor Campout Sleepover...

Yes, I know I am the queen of the blog slackers lately. Here is a cute photo that I could not help but share. Analese has really been anticipating her "indoor campout" sleepover, complete with s'mores. They are having a blast tonight.

Halloween Round 2...

Lee had to work, so I took the kids on a group trick or treat. They made a haul with the candy, and now I'm glad it is over. Now I need to work on making the candy slowly disappear without actually eating it.

Halloween Part 1

Our Halloween festivities began on Saturday evening, when we manned a trick or treat station at a local YMCA. Their costumes from Disney were kind of gross, and I had not yet run them through the hand wash setting on my front loader washer, so I pulled some old costumes out of the dress up drawer for them to wear to the party. It was a lot of fun. This YMCA has all of these tree houses and the trick or treating took place on the boardwalks that connect all of the tree houses. Each treehouse had a game inside. The girls really liked the sweet tooth walk, because they were allowed to keep playing until they won a cupcake. Mariele loved the Y character. I guess the Y is not as scary as Goofy, Pluto or Donald Duck.

Thursday Part 2 - Dinner at Chef Mickey's

We were finally able to reserve a table at Chef Mickey's for the last night of our trip. Chef Mickey's was extremely hard to get into. It is a character buffet right in our resort. Notice Mariele's absence from the photos with Goofy, Pluto, and Donald Duck. She would have nothing to do with any of those characters. She went right to Mickey and Minnie, but she completely cowered when the other characters came around. We did kind of jokingly villianize Donald by telling Mariele that if she did not sit in her chair at the restaurants, we were going to call Donald to the table. I guess she really took us seriously. Goofy and Pluto were just big and tall, I think. I guess when you are as short as Mariele, even people dressed in Goofy costumes can be very frightening. Anyway, Analese loved meeting all of the characters.









That night after dinner, we went to a Marshmallow roast on the beach outside of our resort, then we went swimming. When we got back to our room, we enjoyed one last fireworks display from the balcony. The next morning, we were headed back to the airport. I think we all felt a bit like Mariele in the last photo.