I Wish The Flu Bug Would Fly It's Way Outta Here!

Sorry for the delay in posting. We had an excellent adventure deep in the wilderness this last weekend with the Napa B.E.T.S snow run. This is where everyone including us, takes our jeeps out and 4-wheels through the snow. It was fun but cold and I was an idiot and forgot my jacket of all things. My Dad who is always teased about overpacking came through for me with two sweatshirts. Dad, you are the coolest! The Scout and the Peanut did not get much sleep the night before and were a little worn out. I was pretty sure that the Scout may have been coming down with something and I was right. Never underestimate mother's intuition. She has the flu! She could not get a flu shot due to her horrendous egg allergy and the poor thing has it full blown. I took her to the doctor's yesterday and they said that if she is not better by tomorrow that she will have to come back. Tonight she has perked up quite a bit so that is great, but I am starting to feel a little on the sluggish side. Uh - oh? I am going to hope and pray that I am not getting it, but after being up for the last three days and cleaning up constant puke, it may be inevitable. (Sorry for the visual folks!) So hopefully, I shall return next week with some new crafty posts. If you don't hear from me, you know what happened.

A couple of things...

I have missed so much blogging and the only excuse I have for it is the Peanut catching a really bad virus that turned into croup. Lovely stuff. The humidifier, 7-up and SpongeBob have been running pretty much 24 hours a day around here. Now, I have the creeping crud too. What a bummer! Anyway, I will have to play a bit of catch-up now, so there will be quite a bit of info in this post.

First and foremost, I have to catch up by posting about the Jazz Festival. It was weeks ago now, but wanted to post about how much of a good time we had. We have family friends Matt and Sherri Colby-Bottel that play in the Blue Street Jazz Band at the Festival. I have seen Matt and Sherri perform on many occasions but have always wanted to see them play at the Jazz Festival. We didn't purchase tickets because we were unsure how long we would actually be able to stay at the festival with two small kids. We checked out the schedule the night before and knew they were playing at the Downtown Plaza Piazza, so we went to check it out. They have the Sacramento Brew Pub and Grill convenient placed across the way from the stage so we decided to break for a little lunch and see if we could snag a patio seat to watch the show. We were able to score a table outside and had a nice lunch. The band showed up and played. Sherri wasn't singing until the next venue, so we definitely wanted to stick around till the next show. All of the band members were fantastic, and as you can see by the pic above, there was a whole lot of dancing going on. The band is situated all over the United States. Matt and Sherri currently reside in Louisiana where Sherri is finishing up her doctorate program and Matt works out of their home as a computer program designer. Their music is described as "New Orleans jazz with a mix of swing, Mardi Gras, folk song, marches, waltzes, Latin music, and hymns." Truly an eclectic mix. I would highly recommend checking out their website for a look see and a listen too. I just noticed that they also have a myspace with one of my new favorite songs, "Creole Song," which is truly amazing to listen to. We made our way over to the Pizza Pavilion for their next show. We didn't buy tickets, but there were places on the street that you could see into the show. To our surprise, Sherri worked her magic and got us in to see their show. It was great, and the kids enjoyed dancing it up. I always enjoy watching people perform when you know they love what they do. Matt has been playing the banjo for as long as I can remember. His mom and my mom have been best friends since kindergarten so I have known him for many years. Sherri does all the vocals and has been singing with the band since she was thirteen. Here is a pic that the hub took after the show. The band will be celebrating their 25th year together this year! Congratulations to the band and a big Thanks to Matt and Sherri for a great time at the Jazz Festival!

That same weekend we took our first trip ever to our local farmers market. It was fun. A little more pricey than what I had expected, but it was still cool seeing all the fresh produce and flowers. I did have to break down and buy some fresh flowers for my kitchen. I couldn't resist. They also had a man there that had bottled his own olive oil. He was Italian of course, and greeted my daughter with a "Ciao Bella," he was probably in his sixties but I was in love. The accent gets me every time. If I went to Italy or Ireland I may never return. Ha Ha. Sorry cute husband of mine, you know that I am just kidding! So I am definitely going to return to buy some olive oil from him when I run out of the 50 gallons that I just recently purchased from Costco.

We were on a mission when we went to the Farmer's Market, we were on a strawberry mission! We planned to go home and bust out some yummy strawberry jam that afternoon. The prices were pretty high for strawberries, so we jumped in the car and ran down the street to the local strawberry stand where we scored a flat for only $18.00. A true bargain especially when they were just picked that morning. The car smelled like a giant strawberry shake by the time we got home. My husband has made jam on one other occasion and I, myself, have never made jam. My Grandma makes jelly and jam by the droves every year. She is truly and incredible woman, one that I will have to dedicate a whole post to. Like I said before, I have never made jam so the hub took over the jam making process with the girls and I shot the pics. Here are couple of the yummy ones:

The jam came out great. We ended up having eight large jars. My contribution was the pictures and the artsy labels. We have already given away seven of the eight jars so we will be bustin out some more pretty soon here.

Another thing that I have been meaning to blog about was a great new blog and website that is from the creative minds of a few of my Craft Mafia sisters. Its called Pimp Stitch. If you love embroidery as much as I do, you will definitely want to check out this site. They are offering a free pattern a week until their opening of their site late this month. So head on over and check out the creative brains of Amy Cluck of Peptogirl, Missy Balance of Mohair Circus, Tamie Snow of Roxycraft and Lauren Brandy of Goody Goody. Please go and "Pimp Your Stitch!"

And speaking of Mrs. Missy Balance. I received a fun package in the mail the other day that had such cool things inside. I had ordered one of her spool doll cell phone charms off of her etsy shop. It is so cute and looks quite good with her dark bobbed hair and my pink razor. She also included some super cute tags that say "Hey Cupcake" made with one of her Amuse stamps that she designed. This girl is multi-talented! I love the cupcake tags and am now going to have to purchase this cute stamp because we are having a cupcake party for the girls birthday and this stamp is just what I need. So thanks Missy!

You Can Feel My Pain

Yesterday I saunter over to Wal-Mart with the Scout to pick up some rather unimportant items. I like to slither through my secret entrance in the garden department where I always find the shortest line and get super-close parking. So I am standing in the line in the garden department realizing that everyone else found out about my secret entrance and is now in line with me when the Scout (who up until this point has been strangely quiet) begins to speak...........

Scout: "Mama?"

Deb: "Yes, Scout."

Scout began to speak with the most clarity and tone that I have ever heard come out of her little mouth. Picture the President's Inaugural Address. Here it goes..................................................

Scout: "Mama, did you know that Poppy (grandpa) is a boy......................................................
so HE goes potty standing up!"

It was an epiphany that had been brewing the entire Wal-Mart trip.

Wal-Mart Customers & Employees in the Garden Department: (Uproarious Laughter)

Trying to maintain my composure. I really didn't know whether to burst out laughing or to drop to my knees and cry from embarrassment.

Deb: "You know Scout, you're right, he does go potty standing up!"

The woman behind the counter was very nice and scanned my stuff rather quickly with a huge smile on her face. I was hoping that she was a Mom and could feel my pain as I wanted to escape out of my secret entrance as fast as possible. I almost ran-over the greeter with my cart on the way out. Sorry guy!

A Great Mother's Day

Its been a few days or a few weeks since I have posted. Life has just been so busy lately. I haven't even had time to catch up on my blog reading. I have been busy with the Peanuts school activities, Little League, family stuff and my school stuff. There is only three more weeks of school left for my big kindergartner and then she will be moving to the first grade. Oh my how time flies! I have been totally neglecting my Pink Petunia Designs, and for that, I apologize.

I hope all of my readers that are mommy's out there had a fantastic Mother's Day! Mine was perfect. I woke up in the morning to the Peanut bringing me toast (that she had toasted herself) and orange juice in bed. I then was taken by the hand by both the Scout and the Peanut out to the kitchen where I was dazzled by a fantastic white bag full of handmade BEAUTIFUL cards! It was the best gift a girl could get. The hubby and the girls also garnished me with a new I-tunes gift card (because I had used up all of my husband's a couple of days before. Sorry Sweetie!) I also am the proud new owner of a new pair of pink Crocs. My girls both have a pair and I really wanted a pair, so the hubby and the Scout went to every store in the mall to find them for me. They are probably the ugliest pair of shoes on Earth, but you should really try a pair, the comfort will overwhelm you, and you will quickly toss out your Manolo Blahniks for a new pair of Crocs. After I lavished in all of my beautiful gifts and cusine, we had our baths, packed up the good old gas saving Yaris, and threw in the kids for a fun-filled day at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. It was Girl Scout Day so the Peanut got in free and the Scout did too! Nice! The day was so fun. The girls loved the sea lion show and Thomas Town. The Peanut rode the big log ride with her Daddy (see pic above where the hubby is waiving) and had a great time. She's a daredevil like her Daddy. Her Mommy is a pansy ass and hates big rides that make you want to barf or pee your pants. I know, what a wus!

I have to say that Six Flags is seriously throwing back some cash. $15.00 to park and then you have to walk literally about a half of a mile to get in the park with not a porta-potty in sight and two kids that have just been in the car for over an hour. $25.00 for 1 drink, 1 order of chicken fingers and 1 order of french fries with onion rings. Is this just a little bit out of hand, or is it just me? There was a sign posted that no outside food was allowed, so being the "rule follower" that I am, I didn't bring in any snacks or anything for my milk/egg allergy kid into the park. My husband who likes to break the rules, told me to just stick it in the backpack. They were searching backpacks out in the front and I was afraid they would make me throw it out, and then we would be really screwed. They opened our backpack for two seconds and said, "o.k. you are good." Everywhere I looked, people had brought in their own food. I was frustrated and at lunch the only thing that the Scout could eat was french fries from Johnny Rockets. I wanted to cry because I was so mad at myself. Note to theme parks out there: Sometimes outside food is necessary, especially when dealing with little guys that have bad food allergies to everything you serve. Note to self: Break the rules! Sometimes, it's o.k.! We ended the day with a wonderful meal at Denny's where I lavished in the super-bird (that sucker hit the spot) and french fries and the Scout finally got her chicken nuggets, soy milk and animal crackers that she been pining for all day. Poor kid! All in all it was my favorite Mother's Day to date!

O.k. off to bed. Crafting coming sometime in the near future, I swear!

Sayonara Sucker!!!

Oh yeah, I want to do the happy dance right now. Why you ask? Because I just said goodbye to diapers until I have grandchildren. Ha Ha. Super Cool! This (pictured above) is the last diaper from the final box of diapers that I purchased a few months ago. The Scout got potty trained over President's week and pretty much was trained over night. She is of course still using diapers at night or pull ups and big girl panties during the day. She has been doing great and no accidents during the day. But this here, is the last diaper ever! Just pull ups at night from now on. In a way, I am kind of saddened by the whole thing as strange as it may sound, to think that the baby part of my life is over. It is a strange feeling to come to that realization that your baby is not a baby anymore. Boo Hoo! Ok. I am over it. But I can tell you, on the other hand, how happy I am that we don't have to buy diapers anymore. Wahoo! Saving some cash and saving the environment, well not quite, we are still using pull ups, but soon, very soon we will be out of those too! So humor me for a bit while a celebrate this strange but relevant day in my life!

I have a sick kiddo. The Peanut has been sick since Thursday afternoon and we have been house bound ever since. We have been watching numerous episodes of Sponge Bob and I think that we have caught his "Best of the West" special now about three times. Between the fevers and the throwing up, it has been a real fiesta around here. I took the girls out Saturday in the back yard for a little fresh air and sunshine. I am a firm believer that it can cure what ails you! The Scout played on the playset and the Peanut and I lounged in our Adirondack chairs (did I spell that right?). As much as I hate that she has been sick, our lives suddenly slowed down a little bit and I have to say it felt pretty nice to not be rushing around to baseball and girl scouts and school and meetings. I guess that I had not realized how really busy we were until we stopped for a few days. I actually got a handle on my housework and laundry and things that I meant to get to months ago that have been patiently waiting for me on my desk. I even got some paintings done for my Pay-It-Forward prizes. Three done, two to go. Peanut is finally beginning to feel better today. I kept her home from school today so that she doesn't expose any of her classmates. Their mothers will be bowing down and thanking me. I have to savor the last day of slowness until school lets out. Wait... wait... just another minute, please!

What I Did On My Spring Break

So I never told you what I did over Spring Break. The Peanut was off of school of course and the Trotti Family from Texas came to stay with us for the week. There was six Trotti's that came for a visit. Grandma Trotti, Aunt Trotti, Uncle Trotti and three kiddo Trottis. The week started out with a bang. We traveled to Yuba City to visit our new niece. She is already growing like a weed. We ate lots of Girl Scout Cookies and some yummy homemade chicken noodle soup and homemade french bread. We headed to the park where the menfolk played a little ball and the womenfolk attempted to put a kite in the air. It didn't really work, but it was fun trying. We ended the day with some yummy cupcakes. Thanks Brother-in-law and sister-in-law!

The next day we took a trip to Scandia. It has been a while since I have been there and it is so much fun. The guys and Aunt Trotti all went on the throw-up machine. I don't know what the name of this ride is, but that's what I call it. Remember the hammer at the carnival. Think of that but 100% bigger. Yeah, instant tummy twirler. They had a sign posted that there was no screaming allowed. WTH! O.k. no screaming, but there were a lot of funny looks as people got off this thing. The Trotti's did great. This Trotti doesn't do those types of rides. It's not that I am scared of the heights, but knowing me, I would get a splitting migraine and throw up everywhere. Just speaking from experience! That's a picture of the hubby riding solo. Poor guy! We got bracelets which allowed us to do everything there. The guys and the kids were all over the bumper boats. The bumper boats had mega squirt guns which were used, uhum, sparingly! They were soaked. Next we jumped on the go-carts where we really reeked havoc. So much fun. The manager was eyeballing us the whole time. He emphasized not running into each other and was directly looking at my hubby when he said this! So there may have been a few nudges and a few spin-outs, but it was too much fun! We next headed to the miniature golf where Grandma managed to hit a ball out onto I-80 that then proceeded to hit a car. Whoops! The Scout, who stands a giant 30 inches tall loved the golf. Her sister, who had been begging us to take her miniature golfing, lasted about 10 minutes with it and got bored. The Scout loved it. She is a lefty so it was a little difficult trying to hold the club. She decided at a certain point to just kick it down the green. It worked. When we got to the windmill she walked up and threw her ball in the hole. That works too! It was a crack-up. She would have been there all day if we let her. Here is a couple of the pics. We also did the arcade which was fairly uneventful but the kids enjoyed getting their millions of tickets for their 10 cent junk prizes.

The next day was a cool day. The guys took off and went jeeping with our old goliath of a wagoneer. The girls called it a quiet day and headed to the movies to see "Horton Hears A Who" so cute. We then went to lunch at Chilis. A nice time without the rough and tumble boys. After the guys came back from jeeping, they took off to RPM Motorsports where you can race go-carts. My husband loves this. You have to take a training class first and then you get suited up and race. Even Aunt Trotti joined them at the end of the night. Here they are in all their racing glory! Of course their night ended with hot wings at Hooters, minus Aunt Trotti. Good call, sister.

The next day we were off to Soda Springs Resort for a day in the snow! So much fun! We did a little tubing, and the guys decided to do a little snowboarding. It was so cool because the Texas Trotti kids had never been to the snow before. They loved it and the boys especially loved the snowboarding. Here is a pic of my cute husband coming in for a landing.

The next day they were on their way back to Texas. We always have a great time when we have a visit with them, and for us its always like a vacation too. I think that I am going to marry Aunt Trotti because she does the laundry when she comes and cleans up my house! LOL, and Uncle Trotti, aside from sending my husband vulgar text messages, is great too! He spent the whole afternoon at the snowpark taking the Peanut and her cousin SassyPants tubing when I gave up and went for the lodge.

So that's are Spring Break in the condensed short version. We are headed out to Arkansas next year for a week's worth of houseboating with them. Can't wait!

Craziness

Craziness!!!! I know.... No blogging for like a week straight. What up dog? Well, lots actually. The Peanut started Little League this last week and what fun!!!! The Peanut is only one of two girls on her team and she (to my surprise) is hustling and paying attention more than the boys out there. Most of the boys had even a few tears shed, but the Peanut, she just went out and had a great time playing. I think being in soccer this year really helped. It always amazes me how quickly kids can make friends with other kids. Adults can't even hold a small conversation with a stranger and kids just gather and in less than five minutes they have a game going and chatting it up with the other kids. Adults should take note.

On the craft front: The Sac Craft Mafia meeting was fabulous. It was a pretty small group due to a lot of the rampant illness flying around Sac town, but it was fun. I told you about our two challenges that we had. One, was to make a gavel for our current president Amy. Our Craft Mafia colors are pink and black so I definetly wanted to try to incorporate that into the challenge. I wanted to make it as crafty as possible so I headed to Michaels (I know I said that I was supposed to stay out of there, but it was for club business, so it was allowed) and picked up a few small wooden pots and a wooden thread spool. Painted them, super glued them together, added some ribbon and embellished with my favorite tool in the whole world - a Sharpee marker! It came out pretty cute. I am really not into to many wood crafts, but it came out o.k. I was surprised when they asked if anyone did the gavel challenge and I raised my hand, but nobody else did! Mine was the only one there and everybody said it turned out cute so I was pleased. Our second challenge of the night was not really a challenge, but more of a swap, a Valentine swap. It could be a card or a favor. Now, I really love anything paper, and my first reaction was to do a fantastic card, but I decided instead to do one of my paper topiaries on a small scale. I have made a few of these now, all of them rather large. They usually take me about three days to complete, but because this one was so small, I completed it in just one day. It came out cute. I still tried to use pink and black and of course hearts, its for Valentines Day. Here are a few pics. We chose names and swapped our items, so much fun. Guess what I got............. I got the most fabulous pair of heart earrings made by Craft Mafia sister Lorain of Rain's Embellishments: http://www.myspace.com/rainsembellishments & http://www.rainsembellishments.etsy.com/. Here is a pic. Aren't they awesome? Please check out her sites. She is one very talented jewelry designer! Thank you Rain!!!!!! I have worn them almost everyday since. Especially in the spirit of Valentines Day! Speaking of jewelry, the hubby gave me a huge surprise Valentines morning - a beautiful gold heart necklace with lots of bling. Wow! We usually just exchange cards with flowers or a coffee from Starbucks which I love, so you can imagine my surprise when I saw a little box next to my card. Thank you cute husband of mine!

On the scoping front: I finished my final, yea!!!!!!!!! And, I got a B. I was a little disappointed because the two questions that I missed, I second guessed myself and should have gone with my gut. I always do that on tests. But, I passed, and that is the most important thing. I already began the next class which is Transcript Production. I have been producing transcripts for reporters for over five years now so I thought this section would be a breeze, but so far, not the case. Its hard when you have to learn a different style of doing things than you are used to. So only nine chapters in this one. Hopefully, I will have it wiped out in two weeks or so.

On the personal front: I did it, I went out and chopped my hair. I have to do this every now and then. It makes me feel like I am a completely new person every time I cut my hair. My first idea was to cut it and give it either to Locks of Love or to the Pantene program for women with breast cancer, but no dice. I guess that I can't have color treated hair. It has to be au natural in order to donate, and sadly enough, I have to color mine because of my quickly becoming evident, premature graying. I know, I am only 31, but it is coming in fast and furious thanks to my great gene pool. I was bummed not to donate my hair. It seems like such a waste. I had close to nine inches taken off. Wow! So here are my before and after pics. None of them are great pics of me. It could be the light, and my lack of camera intelligence and the fact that I held the camera up and took it myself, but at least you get the idea. I brought in a picture of Jenny McCarthy. I covet her hairstyle. Isabel over at our local Ulta in Birdcage on Sunrise in Citrus Heights did a fantastic job on my cut. I have had several bobs, but this one is so nice because she thinned it out a ton so I don't look like my head exploded. Thank you Isabel at Ulta. Go visit her she is fantastic!

On the kiddo front: We finally made it to see our friends in Redding this weekend. Their daughter was turning the big 03 and the party was at a jumphouse place. Kids love it. Actually, the husband had more fun than the kids and even broke out into a full blown sweat. I was loosing my pants climbing under the poofy things on the obstacle course. So much fun. The party theme was Backyardigans. One of our daughters' fave cartoons. Here are the party masks that they passed out as favors.

We tried to avoid it, but its here, the Peanut has caught the coughing virus that is going around. I was hoping it was just hayfever, but the poor kid hasn't stopped coughing all week. I finally took her to the doctor today and they confirmed it wasn't anything to worry about. She hasn't run a fever but her chest and her throat are killing her. We sat on the couch most of the day and drank 7-up and watched about a billion Sponge Bob episodes On Demand(Thank You Comcast!!!) and then the movie Deck the Halls. Too cute. I love Danny DeVito.

O.k. so that is the week in a nut shell. On to the next one. I am really glad that tomorrow is a holiday and the office is closed and the hubby is off. I need a holiday! P.S. I am pretty sure that my spell check is not working. I know that my spelling can't be that fantastic that I don't have any misspelled words in my post, but when I hit the button nothing happens so bear with me.

What a Week

Hi All,

I'm back, but just for a second. I was going to bore all of you with the busy details of the past week in a half but I will save you from reading the book. Here it is in short:

A week ago Saturday:
Hubby went to snow run up at Lake Wildwood with Uncle and Dad. Scout had an earache so we didn't go, but instead went to Peanuts baseball clinic. She was one of two girls out of like two hundred boys. Some tears but she persevered in the end. Go get em girl! Later that day birthday party for someone in Peanuts class.

Sunday:
Grandma was here and went to visit. Guys came home from the run and Aunt came down from Forresthill and we went out to lunch. Yum.

Monday: Work, work, work, study a few chapters for my medical terminology class (boo!)

Tuesday: Work, work, work and took some time to create three different sets of note cards for my etsy shop. So cute..... check them out at http://www.pinkpetuniadesigns.etsy.com/. Hopefully I will post my handbags in the next day or two if my camera cooperates with me.

Wednesday: Work, work, work and then work at the Peanuts school the rest of the day.

Thursday: Work, work, work, meet my best friend Kimbalina for lunch at the Chilis. Got the wrong order twice (how can that happen?) Kim's cracking up right now. Had some kid less, well deserved fun with my old pal and went over some Pink Petunia business because she is creating some fantastic cards for my wares. She kicks butt at graphic design! Left Chilis and headed to Janell's Skin Spa on Marconi. Our good friend Cass owns the place. A local business that I heart. Had the eyebrows sugared and they look fantastic. Less painful than waxing. Kim and I agreed next month its a kid less trek for a mani/pedi! Later that night we had a Daisy meeting and final cookie sale paper work. Selling girl scout cookies is a lot of work. Glad to be done.

Friday: Crazy hair day at school. The Peanut decided we had to have butterfly clippies everywhere. We call it butterfly garden! The best one was a friend of Peanuts that came in with her hair completely ratted everywhere. Sooooo funny. LOL. Work, work, grocery store, Costco, study, study.

Saturday: Got my new photo printer working. Cool beans. And my new Adobe Photoshop Elements (that I bought at Costco with my $30.00 off coupon) somewhat figured out.

Sunday: Head to the inlaws, drive to the snow. Played for 10 minutes because it is so wet and snowing hard. The Peanuts hat came off and Scout was getting a cold, but it was fun. Drove to Alleghany (small mining town) deserted but cool to see. Took some pics. Saw Hell's 1/2 Acre and ended up eating pizza at Pizza Roundup in Loma Rica. Best pizza anywhere! Found out my new niece is coming home from the hospital on Friday! Yay!









Monday: Back to the grindstone. Work, work, work. Attempted to clean up my craft space. Scouts sick wanting me to hold her. Watched SuperBad. So funny but really bad language. Never heard the F-word so much in a movie before. I love McLovin!

Tuesday: Here we are! Work, work, work, laundry, laundry, laundry, sick Scout, Peanuts homework, study, study, study, two chapters to go and one test and I am done with my Medical Terminology class. (Hoorah!)

That was the week/week in a half. I guess it turned out to be a novel after all. I feel really bad with not keeping up with my blogging. It just was to hectic. Hopefully I will do a little bit better this week. Night night!

Kiddo Cuteness

Kids say the cutest things. Today the Peanut asked me a typical five year old question, she asked, "Mom, how do you make water? What's the ingredients?" (Mind you, she is an avid watcher of Rachel Ray and very interested in the whole cooking concept. I told her it was hydrogen and oxygen. She said, "Oh, I thought you made water with salt and vinegar." She laughed. She asked, "How many hydrogens and how many oxygens." I said, "Two hydrogens and one oxygen." " Oh, o.k.," she says, "you take two hydrogens and one oxygen and stir until they turn clear and that's how you make water!" Too cute, or maybe its just because I gave birth to her that I think its so cute.

Here Comes Santa Clause

I almost forgot to blog about the Santa Parade that we went to on Saturday. It was so much fun. My husband saw it advertised in the Bee. Sounds fun and inexpensive so why not check it out. That morning we accidentaly overslept till about 8:30 since we were up the night before with one restless two year old (we won't mention any names, Scout). We had to leave at 9:00 in order to get a decent seat where we could see. So obviously no showers, no baths and a shotty breakfast we finally made it out the door. The parade was cool. So many organizations and businesses that I never knew exisisted. The girls particularly enjoyed all the candy being thrown at them. Little one can't eat it but she loves the fact that all the kids run out in the street to snatch it up. Scout kept walking out a few feet in the street to see what was coming next. I have included several pictures. My favorite thing at the parade was the Shriner's in their go-carts. Those things can really haul. I get a kick out of the guys with their little box hats and pointy shoes. They live for this stuff. I don't have very clear pictures because I'm not very skilled at such things, but you can check it out. Then finally Santa arrived. He even brought Mrs. Santa to the event. Peanut asked if that was another helper or the "real one." I told her of course it was the "real one." He flies down for these things. Then there was questions about the sleigh and why the reindeer weren't pulling the sleigh. I told her they hibernate until Christmas Eve!

The Bee Movie

So today we took the Peanut to her very first movie. She is five years old. People are appauld that we have never taken her before. Most of the movies that come out today I think are to scary for little ones. She gets scared watching Disney movies so I had to be careful which movies she sees. I really don't want to be up for a week straight fighting the nightmare bug. I've done it before. So the hubby and I didn't tell her where we were going. We took her and her sister over to Dama's and Papa's house and quickly retreated while the little one had Dama occupied with Fisher Price Little People. Peanut couldn't guess where we were going. We got there and she still didn't know. My husband went and bought the tickets and she said, "Mom, I smell popcorn," still no clue. We finally got in and sat down and she smiled and said, "This is a movie." I know most of you are probably thinking, "jeez its just a movie", but to me it was a milestone. One I was so excited to share with my eldest. Think back, do you remember the first movie that you ever saw in a theater? Comment me back and let me know. Anyway, the theater got quiet and then came the preview which started off way to loud and the worst part was it was TOTALLY SCARY! I think it was called Spiderwick or something. Really not good for a five year old who gets scared by the shark in Nemo. Big scary faces and creatures chasing little kids. I am still not sure why they put this at the beginning of a movie you should be able to take a little one to but, whatever. The movie, once it started, was fantastic. My husband joked with me and said that I reminded him of the girl in the movie and the Bee is so cute with his big eyes it's easy to fall in love with him. The Peanut loved the movie and I of course snuck in our own popcorn and drinks. That's what large purses are for. I was wondering if they were on to me when I left and my bag had deflated to a flat pillow shaped thing compared to the massive tote that entered the theater. Ha Ha. I am so rebellious. I tried to get a picture by the movie poster outside but my phone's memory was full, so no picture except for the one I pulled off the net.