The Case of the Naughty Flip Flop

One day a mommy & her kids decided that for fun they would go visit a fun park with Grandma & the cousins and have a picnic. It was a beautiful fall day in Arizona, so mommy and the kids dressed in their shorts and flip flops, packed up, piled into the car and headed out. Everything was going great (other than mommy forgetting the yummy PB&J sandwiches) and everyone was having fun feeding the ducks their bread when.....

a certain little someone decided it would be MUCH more fun to feed the ducks without any flip-flops on. When the mommy tried to get this certain child to put his shoes back on, the trouble began. During an exuberant kicking action performed to stop the mother's attempt to put the flip flop in question back on, the shoe went flying.

Flying as in sailing into the duck pond flying. Flying as in far away from the mommy's reach flying. At first, the mommy thought she would teach the little child a lesson by immediately buckling him into the double stroller.

~She apparently thought wrong.

Despite the fact that is was perfect timing to stop and show the little one the consequence for chucking shoes into a dirty pond....what the mommy should have done, was dive after that darn flip flop the moment it hit the water. Because within moments of the shoe landing in the water, it took off and quickly became unreachable.

Once the mommy was done teaching the little one about consequences, she realized that the flip flop had already begun floating away. One attempt was made my mommy to "wade" out into the pond with pants rolled, but it was a total failure. Another attempt was made to reach the flip flop with a stick= another failure.

By this time the flip flop had now floated to the dead center of the pond AND was not moving. Things were looking pretty bleak and the little boy was quite distressed about continuing to sit in the stroller........

luckily enters a "hero" or two into this story. After talking with another person at the park and several phone calls later, two "park rangers" arrived to take on the challenge of dragging a little flip-flop out of the duck pond. At this point, the children became delighted to see what kind of ideas the rangers had for the fishing adventure.

Some of those fabulous ideas included:

making waves in the water,

trying to reach with a long extension pole,

the "wait and see,"

and finally one of the brave young "hero's" ventured out in the water up to his abdomen and finally fished out the beloved flip-flop with a pole :)

My how the little children were thrilled to see a grown man, wading out into murky water to collect the precious possession. They were even happier when they saw him walking around drenched in water.

At last the little boy had his shoe and could once again get out of the stroller and first eat some yummy fruit, chips, and rice krispie treat, before playing at the playground on a swing!

The End

(can you guess who the flip-flop in the story belonged to.....good thing he is sooo cute)

Kater-Bug

and a very hot and sweaty little guy

~who by the way NEVER got out of the stroller and was quite the little trouper about that one

Happy Halloween

*Updated post with some cute pictures of Eli as Squirt, the baby turtle from Finding Nemo, and Robby as a fireman....still no pictures from Jesse of Miss M as Belle.

So my camera decided to officially die as of Friday night and I have NO PICTURES of Halloween at the moment (I think/hope Jesse took a few on his i-phone~ please) Until then....this post will have to do.

It makes me want to cry just thinking about no pictures. I love to fuss about and make my kids so stinkin' cute as Maddie would say each year on Halloween. It makes me so sad not to have all the pictures to look back on and smile from the memories.

Plus I am one of those "posters" that always has to have a picture to go along with my words, so here it is:

That is why this little gem is at the bottom of this post. Plus I rather like the expression Miss M has in the picture: I wonder what kind of things are going on inside her head? She has been so proud of her "band" that she made at preschool last Monday and has worn it every day since then. She even reminds me that there is a number 2 on her hat because there are two bats on it as well.

Happy Halloween everyone!

2nd Annual: Schnepf Farms

We had such a fun time last year at Schnepf Farms, that I knew we definitely needed to go again this year. The first time we could all go together as a family was on October 30th due to work schedules/other family activities/etc. At Schnepf Farms they offer half price on Oct 30/31st if you dress up in costumes so we threw ourselves together and went after Jesse got home from work. The kids ended up in their costumes from last year: Cinderella and ASU Football player with Jesse & I as cowboy/cowgirl. It was so much fun once again. We started out having Maddie's face painted with a "green ghost" per Miss M's order.

After some fun face painting we went on Robby's number one favorite obsession: trains. He loved riding the train and reminded us about it the rest of the night. We made sure we hit up the petting barn, rode the bike cars, went down the tunnel slide, played in the kids area, Miss M rode the carousel, and finally had some YUMMY home cookin' while listening to a live country band play.

Thank you Schnepf Farms for another fun fall activity. The kids are already talking about going next year and we will for sure make a whole day out of it next time!

Fun Things I want to BUY for my kids :)

Instead we settled for borrowing a firefighter costume from a neighbor....maybe next time :)

Jeans for Robby.
He seriously has like two pairs of pants that fit right now. Yikes!
The weather change has me scrambling to find something for him to wear to get through the cold front.

Too bad Maddie is too big for this little number. Maybe at some point I will get another girl. Until then....

I am LOVING this dress above with the sweater below. Maybe for Christmas for my little lady.

this past week....

was literally heaven.
*I was off work for almost a week straight :)
*I finally got my hair done again professionally~ it has been almost a year
*I went to a fun "Super Saturday" craft day with Miss M.
*We painted the day away and she was actually quite the little helper there.
*We took family pictures with my family at Freestone park
(which was actually a miserable experience: my kids were very naughty, would not sit still, Miss M decided to be pouty and Robby and Miss M kept running away; BUT Eli was an angel, there were cute individual pictures of all three kids, and we are now done with family pictures for awhile!)
*On Tuesday we got some WONDERFUL news that made us VERY happy!
*We went to the park mulitple times during the week and played, played, played in the sand
*Miss M informed me that "Taj" held her hand in primary, and told her she was pretty (she keeps telling us that he is her "favorite friend"). She asked me all week when she was going to play with him (we were semi-freaking out at this point~ she's only four); but then when she saw him at park day she smiled, said hi, and kept playing with all her GIRL friends. Whewww... I am NOT ready for the interest in boys.
*I attended yet another craft night with some friends and in the process found my new favorite babysitter in my neighborhood. Yeah!!
*And then I came across these little jewels tucked inside my camera of my kidlets sleeping at night

I love how Eli is cuddle up next to his brown bear sleeping
Once again another picture of my two-year old with a pacifier...yikes. I figure we will get rid of it before he hits kindergarten :)

and of course Miss M asleep on her bed with her princess tent propped up on the bed.

Miss M has taken this habit directly from yours truly: hanging up clothes to wear the next day on the dresser with matching shoes placed on the floor :)

relief

Oh what a beautiful day it has been!
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And I did not work a single bit today

~at least with my job :)
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And I actually got sleep last night (did not work last night)~ 9 hours straight sleeping!!
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And I have three of the cutest kids ever
~duh

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And I went to the mall with all three kids in tow and was able to buy a new pair of jeans that I love!

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And I took the kids to the park this afternoon, thus able to further enjoy the beautiful fall weather

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And I felt like a normal stay at home mommy cooking dinner in my apron

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And we all ate dinner together as a family

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And I got a nice kiss from my sweetheart when he got home from work

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And I can hear him and the young men out in the garage working on their go-kart cars right now

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Luv It :)

Shots and Tears

We had a day today that included some master bedroom painting, preschooling for Miss M, cleaning, "potty-ing" by Mr R (we are NOT potty training yet however :), train playing and purchasing (for the previous), napping, cooking, visiting, and lastly doctor visiting. Oh joy....

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Maddie and Eli had their respective scheduled appointments on the same day. So where does that leave Robby? At my wonderful mom's house of course. He was able to have some well-deserved "alone time" with the grandparents and loved every minute of it! Maddie and Eli did NOT love getting shots however. Eli's stats at 9 months:

Height- 30in (90th percentile)

Weight- 21lb 10oz (75th percentile)

Head Circumference- 18.5 in

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Eli had two pokes this time around: a toe stick to check his iron level and a flu shot. He was a champ and barely cried on the flu shot and not at all on the iron test. hurray! He did get upset however when the lady stepped on his toe while trying to vaccinate Maddie (it was the very same toe she did the capillary stick on might I mention). Needless to say, he has been one unhappy baby this evening.

My LITTLE ladies stats at 4yrs old:

Height- 38.5in (20th percentile)

Weight- 30lb (5th percentile)

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Miss M had to have FIVE shots today at the doctor's. We are planning on sending her early to kindergarten next year and so we had to do all the dreaded school shots. She was so not having that. She did fantastic on the first two shots, saying "owie owie owie" when they stuck her. After doing one arm they announced they had to now do three on her other arm. At that point she totally broke down crying and started to say "please no...no I don't want another owie...no..no..no..please don't do it." poor thing. it about broke my heart to have to make her sit still and prep for another go round. the good news is that she is now DONE with shots until she is 11 yrs old~ other than H1N1 and annual flu shots however :)

a day in the life of maddie

Maddie typically starts the day dressed to the "T" at 6:30am with sunglasses, bracelet, multiple necklaces, and shoes all on as well as drawing all her alphabets she has learned thus far on the notebook, while she waits for mom to wake up

after Robby and Eli go down for their mid-day naps, maddie typically has some sort of surprise waiting for me. some days it is a fun puzzle to do, other times she has a bag of popcorn ready to be popped and a movie picked out. on this particular day she prepared our own special tea party complete with rootbeer, crackers and cheese. Yummy!

(obviously I work at a hospital with these goblets right?)

throughout the day she ALWAYS reminds me that she wants to play with friends. She love love loves to play dress up with friends.

then once the afternoon/evening time approaches, we have been trying to walk to the park at the end of our street and enjoy the beautiful weather.

(note: she STILL has her sunglasses on)

*love you little lady....please stay my best friend FOREVER okay?!

9 months and Filled with Adventure

Can you believe my baby is 9 months old?

Me either.

It seriously chokes me up to think that he is growing so quickly.

Can he just stay my baby forever? Here are some of things he has accomplished thus far:

*mastered the art of crawling and mischief
*opening up all doors and drawers
*crawling over to our stairs and almost falling down several times
{it is time to get the baby gate put back up}
*says "mamama" on a regular basis [I love love love this one!]
*pulling anything and everything out of my kitchen/bathroom cabinets
*become a human vacuum
*pulls himself to a stand on almost anything
*stands up at night in his crib and then cries because he cannot figure out how to get back down
*can crawl up to the second step of our stairs- downstairs baby gate is now up most of the time when we are down there :)
*loves to eat small finger foods such as bananas, rice, strawberries, bread, cheerios, veggie puffs, graham crackers, etc.
*drinks out of a sippy cup at meal time
*still LOVES sweet potatoes and carrots baby food
*has his two bottom teeth and must be working on some more lately {he has been unusually crabby}
*sleeps from 7pm-7am most nights
*crawls over to me and tugs at my pant leg and cries to be held
*loves attention from the older siblings
*still takes a pacifier and loves to hold his silky blanket when he goes to sleep
*is a total toe-head :)
*has our whole family wrapped around his pinkie

We sure love you little E

randomness...flashback to Summer

what a relief it is to know that my journaling from Disneyland is finally complete.

it felt like it took forever.

I was looking back on some pictures from this summer that I never posted and these ones all made me smile :) *Robby in the Bumbo chair with his beloved papa; like I've said before mr. R would love to forever be our baby :)
*a random occurence with some fun headbands.
*Maddie wearing her all-time favorite "cherry shirt" as she calls it. Right now, it is successfully hidden at the top of her closet. When I bring it down again, she will probably wear it every single day it's clean until we "lose it" again.

*even Robby wanted to join in on the headband fun. Daddy was not too excited about that one.

and once again you can check out his "perma-frown" that he has perfected

*Lori (my sis), Eli and I at Zack's baby blessing dinner. Unfortunately, I had to work that night so I am decked out in my navy blue scrubs. I will have to get some pictures of him on my blog one of these days... he is a cutie and quickly becoming a mini-linebacker :)

Papa Toronto's birthday dinner; he just loves my kids= the grandkids, and is always so good to them. the end result: my kids are all obsessed with him. {by the way, can you believe how grown up Robby looks in this picture...blows me away}