Let your Imagination go & a kiss!!

Today was Dr. Seuss's birthday.  In his honor, Caitlyn and Brent's school had a parade and they were to come dressed up as one of Dr. Seuss's characters.  I have known about this for a month but in true Stephanie style I procrastinated until the last minute.  I really wanted to just keep the kids out of school today but....  I kept on going and those creative juices finally came out.  

You might not agree.  But this is not the time to say!!

Caitlyn decided she wanted to be the puppy.  You know from the book Hop on Pop.  This book is made up of rhyming words and then a sentence about it.  

 

You can see the words on her tea cup.  

CUP

PUP

Pup in Cup.

Then I made sure to put from Hop on Pop from Dr. Seuss so everyone was sure to know we were on track.

We took a brown t-shirt, head band for the dog collar, another headband and attached dog ears and then made the tea cup.  Oh yea, and eye liner for the nose and whiskers.  FREE!  She was so excited and in to it!

Brent was supposed to be green eggs and ham.  But of course he wouldn't even put it on for a picture much less a parade.  It was a green pillow case with an egg yolk and a pig!  Super imaginative.  But isn't that what Dr. Seuss is all about.

Bedtime is all telling around here.  I love reading with my kids.  Right now Brent loves having songs read to him.  He loves Twinkle Twinkle, Jesus Loves Me and the ABC Song. 

Caitlyn and I talk about her day.  Yesterday I found out she had a bad day at school and she had to write a note of apology to her teacher.  She copied my handwriting and did surprisingly well.  Tonight she informed me that she and Luke (a boy in her class) have been kissing.  Really?  Even on the lips.  I'm not sure to believe her but I checked with everything she told me about her behavior yesterday and everything was true to a tee.  

My little girl.  Ugh!

Broken Batteries

Caitlyn had her first surgery last week and hopefully her last. She came through with flying colors and recovered in just hours. She cried for about 30 minutes after the anesthesia and  Jeff found it quite comical watching her eat her popsicle but he did remember to take a photograph.

We had noticed that she wasn't hearing us well at all and was asking us to repeat ourselves when we were just inches away from her face. The ENT doctor confirmed our suspicions that she honestly could not hear us and it was not just selective hearing that many children have.  

Luckily, it was an easy fix.  She had a lot of fluid behind the ears.  We tried a decongestant for a month and that did not work.  In fact, it got worse and she had multiple ear infections within that time period and was in constant pain towards the end.  It became so sad.  She couldn't hear and always said it hurt.

She commented one day that the batteries in her ears didn't work.  I asked her how she knew that some people how batteries in their ears.  She said that her teacher told her class to put on their listening ears and her ears didn't work.  She said her batteries were broken.  Poor thing. 

Well, luckily her batteries are now fixed.  With tubes put in and adenoids taken out she is all put back together.  The ENT found a lot of mucus behind her ears so no wonder she was in so much pain (not his words, mine - so completely a mother's guess!).

Only bad news,  she is back to being so loud.  But I'm glad she is better!

The Big Five

As my sister has pointed out twice, I have not blogged about my daughters birthday.  Ugh!  I'm horrible. 

We had a fantastic birthday.  She had two friends over to the theme of a "Dress Up Party".  I painted their nails, put on a little bit of make up and we played a fun game up Pass the Purse.  It is a twist on Musical Chairs and when the music stops you get to take jewelry out of the purse and put it on.  By the end of the game the kids were silly looking with jewelry as you could see in the picture above. 

I quickly printed out that picture and used it for the frame they made so they could it home for a party favor with all of that jewelry.  It seemed to be a real hit!  I like have parties at the house!!

We also had another birthday get together with Kenley and Jacob who couldn't be with us at the party.  It is always fun to have multiple birthday parties and stretch it out!

Thank you Chelsea for the tip to update my Blogger.  I appreciate it.  I sure do wish you lived closer.  If you want to know her tip you should check out my comments from yesterday!

Is there anybody out there?????

So one of my friends asked me today if I was ever going to blog again. So I truthfully answered, "No."

There is so much to do.

I feel like every post needs a picture and have you ever uploaded on blogger - that takes forever!!!

I feel like I wear so many hats and I can only juggle so many at one time. I mean my laundry is all done and put away, my meals are planned and groceries are bought and I'm up to date on Facebook and General Hospital.

But really, I do like keeping up with my blog (in theory). So I have a question for the two of you. Do you know of an easier way to upload pictures? How do you keep up with the pictures you take and storing them on the computer and then blogging? Any genius ideas?

I'll trade you! A neat hint for some advice. This is cool and time saving. You can use the space bar to scroll down an entire page. Try it the next time you are reading a blog or book on the internet!

Sir Charming Chauncey

Today we made a hard decision, but the right one to put our dog, Chauncey to sleep.

He had a terrific life and picked up many, many birds. In one year alone he picked up over 400 birds in a hunting season. That is a good life for a hunting dog. In the picture above Chauncey is on the far right, Cali (our dog also) is next to him, and next to Cali is Star, Chauncey's daughter.
Chauncey turned 13 on January 5th.
Jeff has had him since he was in college and before he knew me. They were best buds.
Chauncey's quality of life has deteriorated and it was time to let him go.
He was such a good dog! Great with Caitlyn and Brent! We will miss him very much.

Caitlyn knows best?

Caitlyn has been giving me a couple of suggestions lately.

She got a lot of neat toys for Christmas. Usually we purge and give away toys in November and I haven't gotten around to it yet. So her room is a mess. She looked around her room the other day and said, "Mom, we really need to clean up my room this weekend and give some of my toys away."

I was cooking some bacon for a great dish, Bacon and Tomato Pasta. It turned out so well by the way. She came over and helped me cook for a little bit. She assessed the situation of the bacon cooking and even though it was her first time ever seeing bacon cooking she said, "Mom, I think the bacon needs to be flipped over." Can't wait until she is the cook!

She is cracking me up lately.

She has been asking about Heaven a lot lately. She wanted to know where it was. She thinks Heaven is in Missouri!! We have lots of family that live in this great state: Aunt Kari, Aunt Betty, Grandpa and Grandma and so many more.

O-Kay!

I wish you could type it the way Brent said it all day today. Everything I told him to do, he would say, O-kay. He said it so sweetly and with a bit of a twang!

I just simply want to remember it forever. Tomorrow it might be NO again.