Reli's World

Future Member of KISS?

Troop got into my mascara and eyeshadow and gave it a try. As you can see, he's quite pleased with the result.

Puppy Love

At Keetah's school, teachers often bring their dogs with them to class as the class pet. Keetah has the most magical teacher on the planet with the most adorable dog on the planet. Daisy the Wonder Dog has a very sparkly litter of puppies born just before the winter break.

For the last 3 weeks, the puppies have been in the classroom every day. As you might imagine, Keeks is over the moon about the whole experience. Last Friday was the last day before the puppies went to their new homes, so we needed pics! Here is Keeks holding her favorite puppy "Ellabelle," Keek's friend (to the right) and her friend's little sister. Cuteness overload!!

 

Christmas 2011

Better late than never. :)

Yaya didn't get her real horse for Christmas, but she got a play stable and some pretend horses (and a riding lesson), so she was quite pleased.

Keeks got her "aminontronic" dolphin, too:

Deedle got a mailbox just like the one that he loves to play with whenever he visits Kiki's Kindergarten room:

The kids really liked this zig-zag door decoration that they had to break through to get out of their rooms on Christmas morning:

Yaya is fascinated by Harry Potter, and Santa must have known that, because he brought her some Bertie Bott's All Flavor Beans. And when they say all flavor, they mean it. Yaya spent the day conning everyone into trying jelly beans that tasted like caterpillers, baby wipes, and even skunks. Ick!

Here are the cousins at the kids' table that are old enough to sit at the kids' table. The boys were stuck in high chairs, but the girly-girl club may be in for a little surprise takeover starting next holiday season. Right now, Deedle is on the loose and wreaking havoc. Next year, there will be 2 mobile babies, so the girls had better watch out.

We tried out a new tradition of having a white elephant exchange at my girls request. They had seen stuff I brought home from our MOMS Club exchange and were really curious about the game. I warned them that they might not get a gift they liked, and they were down with it, so we gave it a try. Everyone brought gifts and piled them all into one big pile, so noone knew if they were getting a kid or adult gift. Every time Yaya's gift was stolen, she opened a new gift, which worked out for her until she got this:

The look says it all, and I love Keetah's huge grin off to the side. lol! Don't feel too bad for Yaya, though, because she stuck ME with that hat!! and took a Crocodile Dentist game for herself. She didn't even feel bad about it, either! "That's how the game is played Mama! HAAAAA!" Too funny.

Keetah was number 1, which meant she could trade her gift for anything in the room. There were plenty of toys, including a magic wand with sparkles and stars and even the gift Keeks had chosen herself to bring to the swap, but what she chose was that gold-trimmed candy dish she's holding. She brought it home and put it on her dresser filled with seashells she got at the shell shop at the beach last summer. Interesting choice for a 6-year-old, IMO. :)

2011 was a fun Christmas. My favorite memories from the season: the trip we made to the Sea World Christmas event; Deedle learning about "Ho Ho;" Yaya working through all of her anxiety about getting a pony and coming to peace with the fact that she wouldn't and still being very happy; the ELVES and all the joy they brought to us with their stupid antics; the MOMS Club Christmas party; spending time with girls at school for their Christmas things; Yaya getting the part of Veruca Salt just before school was out; caroling with the girl scouts at the nursing home; Drew and how much he was supportive when Deedle and I were so sick this season; and all the time we got to spend with friends and family. :)

Taking a Break

We've had a long run of illness, so I haven't been taking lots of pics, but I'll get organized again and start posting again next week. :)

The Gingerbread Horse

This freehand gingerbread horse creation took up the entire cookie sheet and inspired a story that went along with it!

Oveheard v. 51

The girls love to read about things that happened "a long time ago" on their blog. Reading is new to Keeks, Yaya is getting good at navigating the internet, so basically, they are finding all of this history of their lives and are fascinated by the stories. But they don't understand the limits of it - they want to be able to look up anyone in their lives and read and see all about that person from anytime. Case in point:

Keeks: "We want to see what it was like when you were little. Put in 40 years ago."

Me: "I can tell you what it was like or show you pictures, but there is no blog of my life 40 years ago."

Keeks: "Come on, just try! Put in 40 years ago so we can see you. We want to know!"

Me: "Keeks, listen. There were no blogs. The internet didn't exist yet. There was no computer at my house, or at anyone's house. Really. No 40 years ago."

Keeks: "Arrrrrrrggh! Can you PLEASE just try? PLEASE? I really really want to see it!"

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Me: There was this weird chick on the other end of the phone...

Yaya: Who was the weird chick? You?

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Yaya: Mama, when I run for President of the United States, are you going to vote for me?

Me: Yes, of course.

Keeks: Well what about if I run for President of the United States at the same time? Then who are you going to vote for?

Yaya: Then she wouldn't vote for anyone, Keetah. Or maybe she would vote for someone and Daddy would vote for someone else.

Keeks: Well, what about if Troop was running, too? Then what?

Yaya: Then noone would vote, Keetah!

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Troop's first little sing-along song -- he shouts "Ginch!" on "You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch!"

During the weeks before Christmas, he had to take breathing treatments and the ONLY things that kept him calm were a) Yaya breathing through the mask first and demonstrating how fun it was and b) watching the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. And because he loves it so much, it became our go-to to entertain him for 10 minutes while we got Christmas things handled. So now, he has seen it about 10 million times, and he apparently knows every word and his ability to show this is limited only by his ability to speak. If we all really want to thrill him, we bust into a family chorus of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch." haha

And, finally, we know that he has internalized the concept of the Grinch as someone who is doing something that others don't like. We know this because Troop hates to have his diaper changed, and one afternoon when I was changing him, he fussed at me, said no to the diaper changing table, and then when I insisted, he pointed to me and said, "You Ginch!!" haha

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Troops second little sing-a-long song, he shouts "TAR!" when we sign "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little..." :) The boy is musical.

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Yaya: If Santa's not bringing me a pony, what is he going to bring me? I mean, he can't bring me little kid things, and he can't bring me all the teenager type things either!

Me: What are teenager-type things?

Yaya: You know...cell phones and IPod Touches and IPads and stuff!

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Yaya was having a hard time with the transition back to school. She wished to be little again so she could stay home and play and not have homework and responsibilities, and she was so very sad.

Troop offered a hug and kiss. Yaya reflected, "If I went back just a year or two, I wouldn't have my baby brother with me anymore! I wouldn't have how funny he is and how cuddly he is."

Keeks offered her comfort, too. "Yaya, I wish I could be you just for today so that I could be sad instead of you."

 

Gratuitious Cuteness: Biggest Sis, Little Bro

Flashback - New Year's Eve 2003

Major props to Steph for unearthing these 2 pics of the kids on Adam and Yaya's first game night (Adam is a mere 2 months older than Yaya), New Year's Eve 2003. Hard to believe they were so little - Yaya couldn't even sit up on her own yet!

Happy 2012!!

New Year's Eve 2011:

Meet New Year's Eve 2007:

Beebs and Troop REALLY look alike!!

Stupid Elf Tricks Part 2

The Elves on Shelves (or not on shelves, as is the case with ours) are hands down the best tradition we've added to Christmas. Awesome fun. The best/worst trick of the year - Snowy painted the kids' noses red like Rudolph overnight with "washable" (in theory, but not in practice) markers. We were a little too busy scrubbing noses with shaving cream and all sorts of things before school that day to get pictures, and let's just say it's a good thing the school staff had a sense of humor. I mean, their noses weren't bright red by school time, but you could tell something was up. Ooooooops.

Here's Snowflake when she made her first appearance on St. Nicholas Day (which we celebrate because of Baby C's German heritage - her dad is native German). Apparently, when Santa tossed the coins into the kids' shoes, he let Snowflake out and she popped down the chimney with a bouquet of mistletoe for Snowy.

I think we were all hoping that Snowflake would be a calming influence on Snowy, but alas, no. Our hopes were dashed when we discovered this mischief with icing and sprinkles (and btw, I do believe Snowy and Snowflake used HALF of one kind of those 5 packs of sprinkles, but by the time I saw them in the morning, the ENTIRE jar of sprinkles was used up, so I think some other elves were afoot. Just sayin'.)

Snowy and Snowflake brought several treats through the month:

Good thing the gas on the stove was turned off or the elves' attempt at making s'mores could have been a problem:

Message from Santa (we have young elves, so they often talk and spell like preschoolers, and they make their E's decorative, like Keeks prefers to make. ;) 

Then there was the morning we discovered this: 

The girls got very attached to Snowflake, too, so they decided they better ask official permission from the Man in Red for her to live here. There was a great deal of distress early on Christmas Eve about whether she would be allowed to stay, but once the letter was written, the girls were settled. I'm glad we opted not to try and stick with the whole "elves leave on Christmas Eve thing." With my kids, that would have been really upsetting.

The final trick - confetti!! It was EVERYWHERE before the morning was over, but it was fun. :) The girls assigned the elves stockings - each elf got his/her own sleigh bell from Santa.

The negotiation for letting the elves stay here was that they only use their magic between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Of course, the girls feel this should be renegotiated (maybe they could do tricks on holidays? How about every 10 days?) You never know what those elves might have up their sleeves...