November Birthday Bonanza!

November is a busy birthday month for us! We had 3 parties for Kelly and 1 party for me all in one weekend! We started with Delanie's 5th b'day. It was a gymnastics/tumbling & pizza party at the La Jolla YMCA. Because of a huge traffic problem, Kelly & I were late and missed the tumbling part :-( But Kelly got to enjoy pizza & cake and run around with about 30 other kids, always a good time!

Then it was Nico's 4th b'day party - It was Diego themed, complete with a Diego jumpy which Kelly loved and where she spent most of her time. She had a great time!

That night was my turn - I went downtown to celebrate Mary's 40th. No photos from that - you know those 40th b'day parties, top secret and all!

Sunday, we were off to Mission Bay Park to celebrate baby Nathan's 1st birthday! There is a HUGE park area close to Sea World Dr. that we had never been to. So many cool play areas! Kelly loved it!


Nathan is soooo cute! He got scared of his big rubber ducky cake though and did not humor us adults with the usual 1-yr-old-cake-eating mess that we look forward to! Nathan and Kelly adore each other! I'm pushing an arranged marriage. I'm trying to convince Nicole that by the time they are old enough to marry, a 2.5 year age difference will not matter at all!

We were exhausted by Sunday night. Kelly literally curled up on my lap and fell fast asleep, lights on, TV on, etc at 6:00p.m. which she NEVER does, so you know she was T-I-R-E-D! The sign of a very, very good weekend!

And its not over yet! Next up is Devyn's birthday party at JW Tumbles this coming weekend. Glad we had a week in between to recover!

Swing Partners

Kelly loves the "big girl" swings now and does pretty good holding on and "pumping" her feet back & forth to get herself going, although a good push from mom is always welcomed.


But ever since I showed her how to swing WITH mommy, that's the only way she wants to do it. Can you blame her? :-)

Day Out with Thomas (Year 2!)

I thought Kelly's fascination with Thomas the Tank Engine had significantly waned shortly after her 3rd birthday, but she must have been just taking a short break because we quickly realized she is still loving almost all things Thomas.

The only thing she stopped liking were her Thomas jammies because they are blue & red and she says they are "for boys". I tell ya, the Thomas marketeers are really missing out on some $$$s by not doing more marketing to the girls! How hard is it to make a pink Thomas shirt?

Anyway, on Veteran's Day, Chelsea & Kainoa, Me & Kelly and Uncle Johnny all trekked up to the "Day Out with Thomas" event at the Orange Railway Museum in Perris, CA. The kids had a total blast - the grown-ups...well, lets just say it's kind of a loooong day!

Monkey see, monkey do...

Let's go to the petting zoo!

Two peas in a pod...

A ride on Thomas' coaches

Why are the adults smiling and the kids look sad?

We were on our way to the exit!

Date Night

Last week we babysat Kainoa so Frank & Chelsea could have a date night - and they are going to return the favor to us in a couple weeks!

This works out really well as both kids are very comfortable with each other and at each others' homes. Kelly & Kainoa get along so well and have such a good time together!

The feed off each others' silliness!

They both have a great sense of humor

and love to make each other laugh.

They both enjoy bathtime.

And they both love curling up and

watching Thomas the Tank Engine.

It's like they have their own little date night too! Hmmmm! ;-)

Kelly Dancerelly

As soon as soccer ended, mommy decided to let Kelly give dance a try! So I take her once a week for an hour - they do very beginner ballet moves, "animal" yoga, and interpretive dance (like being pirates and "swabbing the deck" or being gazelles running thru the forest...etc)

Kelly is taking to it much quicker and easier than soccer. She especially loves dressing up in her little ballerina outfit. Ok, mom likes that part too!

If she continues to like it and advances, I hear that they have to wear their hair up... not sure HOW I am going to manage that! But for now, thankfully, she is allowed to wear it down. Very pretty :-)

Hopefully, I'll get a couple more shots of her at class and in action, maybe at her final "recital" in a few weeks!

The Halloween Costume

Sorry for lagging in getting the Halloween photos up on the blog...you'll understand after you read this, so bear with me in telling the story...

A couple months before Halloween, I started asking Kelly what she wanted to be. The standard princesses were mentioned - Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel - but one day she excitedly said, "I wanna be Minnie Mouse!" I thought it would be a fleeting mention, but the idea stuck! Everytime I asked her (or had one of her teachers or Nana or someone else ask her), she kept with the same answer every time, "I'm gonna be Minnie Mouse for Halloween!!" GREAT!

About 2 weeks before the big day, I decided since Kelly REALLY wanted to be Minnie Mouse, I would search for the authentic costume on E-bay. I found it and won it for a pretty good deal (relative to buying it brand new), and kept it hanging in pristine condition in another room out-of-sight so it wouldn't get ruined before the big day.

The night before Halloween, I decided to try it on her to make sure everything fit and so she could see it and start getting even more excited! Her face lit up when I brought it out - really, the look was priceless! I think I was more excited than she was!

We put it on, and within 5 seconds flat she says, "mommy, its ITCHY! I wanna takeitOFF!!" I suggested we puy on a shirt underneath, but her mind was already made up. Her costume was itchy and uncomfortable and she was NOT gonna wear it! Ok, I thought. Tomorrow we'll wake up, and she'll forget, and I'll put the t-shirt on first so it won't be itchy and all will be good again!

HA! Forget? My girl does NOT forget a thing! She refused to put it on to wear to school. But I figured she'd want to wear it when she sees all her little friends at school in costume, so I brought it with us and left it there for the teachers to try. I came back about an hour later to drop off her lunch (which I forgot in all my worry over the costume). The kids were all outisde, so I peered thru the window and WOO-HOO! There she was in her costume!! I did not get a real close look and did not want to go outside, afraid she'd want to take it off if she saw me, so I left there happily thinking we were all set for tonight....

....well... When I picked her up, I found in her cubby box a plastic bag with the costume rolled up in a wet ball and stinking to high heaven of cleaning solution - I mean it smelled TOXIC! That morning they said they would do a parade and then change them back into their regular clothes so as not to RUIN their costumes for later...what happened to that plan???!!! I asked her teacher...Um. What. happened. to. her. costume? Apparently, they were have so much fun in their costumes that they kept them on for snack and Kelly got green frosting from a cupcake smeared all down the front of it, Ooops! Ok, so I was really, really bummed...and mad and stessed! What would we do? What would she wear!? But Kelly didn't seem bothered at all. So I took a deep breath and just let it go (which I have been learning to do more and more!), and decided to just roll with it.

Once at home, Kelly decided she wanted to wear her new ballet outfit I had just bought for her new dance class. Hmm. Not much of a costume... but Fine! Perfect! She was completely, totally happy w/it, so why shouldn't I be?! Gary was in a great mood and was trying on different wigs and such from out costume trunk. They both pulled me out of my bad mood and got me to pull together a pirate costume. Gary threw on his rasta dreads and hat, and off we went!

We trick-or-treated over in the beach neighborhood of Encinitas which was really cool - all the houses were decorated and handing out candy. There were tons of kids in the streets. We ended up having a blast. Kelly really got the trick-or-treating thing down and wanted to go again the next day...and the next day!

Supposedly one of the teachers got a pix with Kelly in her Minnie Mouse costume. I had been waiting for her to send it to me before I did the blog, but have yet to see it. If I ever get it, I'll post it! But it is what it is... we never really saw her in it, and if asked what Kelly was for Halloween this year... she would say she was a Ballerina anyways :-)