Community Picnic

It is a village ritual that every weekend before Halloween, we take our grills for a walk.  Not really, but I couldn't help but take a picture of my neighbor bringing his grill to the annual picnic. 

It was a weird time to have a picnic, but it was a lot of fun.  The weather was perfect.  The area that I live in is a hold out from the bigger city.  I live in an unincoperated part of town, which is hard to explain because we literally live in the area called mid-town.  It is often called The Village.  I can see that because it has a real small town feel.  When we went out of town for a month, I didn't tell my neighbor accross the street.  (I had told her husband but not her.)  She was so concerned and kept asking the fellow above where we were, and when we would get back.  Not only that, but because the school district is good, we have a lot of kids in our neighborhood.  And we have our own police force, which is a force to be reckoned with.  Do NOT run the stopsigns in the Village!

Since we were not able to get batman to wear his costume, we had a good stand in. 

And Carla!!!  She was my neighbor when we lived in the OLD house.  She has since moved up towards our neighborhood.  Her grand daughter is almost the same age as BabyP. 

Photo Shoot

I was going through some old pictures and putting them in albums for the kids to see.  I came accross some pictures of the kids laying together on my bed looking cute.  I tried to replicate it, but as with most things when you are dealing with a 2 year old that hates to have his picture taken and a 5 year old that LOVES to have her picture taken.  It was difficult.  This is what I came up with.

 I deleted the tons of shots that I took of BabyP putting a knee into Peanut's face because well... I wanted to.

 

 This was an attempt on my part to play with my software a bit.  I am not crazy about the picture, but I do like how the colors looked.  Poor girl matched the sheet.  I like the picture more now.

 This was one of the numerous times she told me to take her picture.  I agree, this is a nice pose for her.  This is much better than the other "cute" poses she was doing. 

 This is where he would tell me to get if he wasn't spitting on me, Little Punk.  He decided I couldn't take his pictures.  Too bad I think he is super handsome and wanted to take his picture anyway.  I need to document more of his faces he makes.  He makes some pretty crazy "eat shit and die" faces. 

This is Peanut in timeout for throwing a rock at my bum.  I had already been on her for throwing snow at me, so I guess she thought what I didn't like about it was that it didn't hurt enough.  Man, she can be so naughty.  She gets tired and C-R-A-Z-Y. 

But I didn't put this picture up so I couldn't complain about my kid.  The neighbor's cat came over and gave her some attention.  She is petting her with a branch.  It is pretty sweet to see how the two of them were interacting.

Splash Park

We finally made it to the splash park this year.  BabyP was hesitant at first, but as soon as his sister came along, he was ready to roll.

 

 

Okay and this isn't my kid, but I was fascinated by her.  She started off like this and ended up whooping it up with the big kids in the middle of the fountain.

After dinner, we took a ride on the trolley, which yet again, turned into another LONG ride.  How is it that these trolleys can just seem to keep rolling.  They always have to stop for long periods of time.  

When we got on the trolley, BabyP was so excited that he was squealing really loud.  It was pretty shrill, but fun to see him get so excited about stuff. 

And just a random picture of my sweet girl.  She loves to dress up.  After I took her picture, she decided that I needed to take a picture of every outfit she was wearing. 

Grow

This past weekend, we just took some time to slow down and relax. After traveling the week before, we needed some time to get caught up on house work and some sleep. Well others in the family may not have, but I sure did need some sleep.

Our big excitement this weekend was we took Peanut on a date. We took her to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. It was nothing like the book, but it was still really good. I think taking a 3.5 year old to the IMAX with 3D is a bit much, but she seemed to enjoy herself. She complained about it being so loud, so next time, we are going to bring plugs. (also cause we are safety geeks)

BabyP has been battling a sinus infection. I have decided rather than take him in for some antibiotics, I was going to try to use the ear drops to clear it up. For the most part, it seems to have worked. His snot is no longer green, but he still sounds a big congested in the chest. I am going to give it until Friday before I take any action (9 days of symptoms). I called in a prescription today for some antibiotics for his eyes. He has been a little green since Thursday, but starting today, it was in both eyes. It seems like it is always something, but at least we haven't been one of the swine flu scares. It has been over 3 weeks since either kid has needed to go to the doctor, so I am hoping we are rounding the bend with BabyP not being ill all the time.

BabyP has been in a pretty good mood lately. I was thinking the other day how it used to be that Peanut was the hard one, but it seems that lately, BabyP has been the more difficult child to be around. He just always seems to be a big grump. On our trip it got really bad. The next week, I pretty much held him the whole week. It wasn't until Sunday when he finally started acting like the sweet boy he is. I know he was feeling out of sorts, but man....

The kids school seems to be going well. BabyP is doing some neat art. Peanut brings home pictures that actually look like something. She is also bringing home handwriting sheets where she is learning all of her letters. It is pretty impressive because I remember being in Kindergarten and really straining to remember what an S looked like. I imagine learning letters is a pretty difficult thing. She is finally spelling her name correctly consistently (again) now if she can only write it. I have a feeling she knows, but just doesn't want to do it.

BabyP is growing up. I think he has gone through another growth spurt. He has been eating like crazy and feels a lot more solid when I lift him up. I feel like he is on the verge of saying a lot of different things. He gets close for things like kookaburra and sister. (What, you guys are saying kookaburra all the time?) I think he thinks that when you hand someone something you are supposed to say thank you. He hands me random stuff and says "Dank du". The other day his sister "forgot her manners" and he said "siiiiduuuuu" It was pretty funny. The S is a new sound just in the last couple of days.

He does say a lot. He has these long stories he tells where he points and smiles and laughs and looks oh-so-serious. I like it when he is in a good mood. I hope this infection goes away completely so we don't have to take him to the doctor, and I have to spend the next week worrying if I exposed him to Swine flu.

We are doing well with watching less TV. Peanut might start going with me to gym when I go on Wednesdays for my class. She seems to really enjoy it, and it gets her out of the house without her brother.

Peanut has been a bit more trouble than normal lately. She has been really needy. I asked at school how the dynamics were between her and the other girls. Her teacher seemed really impressed with how all of them got along. The park has been another story. We had another instance where peanut got rejected and her feelings hurt. She is very hesitant to go the park anymore. We are still trying to go, but we are limiting our time there. We have talked about ways to interact with certain people so we don't get our feelings hurt.

I have been cleaning up the kids amazon lists for Christmas. What is everyone getting their kids?