Halloween

While this is technically Lina’s second Halloween, it feels like her first in many ways. This year I got to see how much she enjoyed wearing her costume when she asked to put it on and then danced away once she was wearing it.



Thanks to my sister for this cute picture.



She also had enough hair this year for me to make a fun head piece to go with her costume.

Please ignore the flash glare, it was dark when I took this shot.

I made it from three zippers and some peacock feathers. I didn’t take any step by step pictures, but I got the idea from here.  I would also recommend being armed with some fray check once you cut the zippers.



This is also the first year she got to go trick or treating. She was very good about carrying her bag around and putting the treats inside. She thought running from house to house was so fun that she would erupt into giggles. And when she got tired, she was having too much fun to whine about it. She simply asked to be held, climbed in the stroller with her new cousin or went to the Monster Wagon. Lina and Miss O would giggle and squeal as Mason pulled them and the wagon along. At least until we got to the next house when they would climb down and run to the door.





Miss O was so good about waiting to ring the door bell until Lina caught up with her. She was also very clever when someone asked her for a trick. She simply replied “The trick is, you give me a piece of candy.”

Happy Halloween!

Finally an Update!

September was such a busy month that most of it is a blur. We had mandatory overtime and occasional weekends for the entire month. Which means after sitting in front of the computer for 10 hours a day, the last thing I wanted to do is go home and sit in front of the computer. As if that weren’t exhausting enough, Lina decided that sleeping through the night was highly overrated.

Anyway, we now have 3 more teeth, giving us a total of 8. 2 of them arrived on the same day and the 3rd showed up a few days later. You would think that would end the whole waking up in the middle of the night thing, but it didn’t. She has also had to adjust to being in a big girl bed. She climbed out about 30 seconds after we put her down for her afternoon nap one day, so her bed was converted to the toddler bed that evening.

Putting her down for sleep has been pretty easy. Keeping her in bed in the middle of the night proved to be the tricky part. The first night I’m pretty sure she walked out of bed. It took her a few nights to learn that she couldn’t walk around in her bed anymore. Now she has mastered safely getting out of bed and more importantly, getting back in.

Last week she received her very first hair cut and was not at all pleased about it. She cried and fought so hard that we got kicked out of the room. After we left, Lina sat in her chair and cried. But at least she sat still so Peggy could give her an adorable little bob.

But perhaps the biggest news of all is that Lina has a new cousin! Lina of course wants to hold her and love on her just like she does her baby dolls. Which means she is most definitely not allowed to hold her!

Pop and his girls.

It's Not Easy Being One

The weekend after Lina turned one, she bonked her head on the coffee table. It was actually quite comical if you ignore the fact that there was pain involved. She bent down to pick up a toy and hit her head on the table, cried for a second and tried again with the exact same outcome. She did this three times in a row. After the third time I decided it was most definitely nap time. Two hours later, she woke up with a black eye. It wasn’t a bad one, it just looked like she was really tired. Fortunately it was the day after we celebrated her birthday with her Grandparents and Great Grandparents.

The very next weekend, we were planning on heading over to the park to snap some pictures for the invitations for her big party in the park. I wanted the sun to be a little lower in the sky for better lighting, so I planned on going after her afternoon nap. Guess who woke up from her nap with a fresh shiner. Bright and purple. I don’t know how that one happened, I can only guess that she banged her head on the crib while trying to resist taking a nap.

Since I was the one taking the pictures I decided to postpone the shoot until the next day when her eye would be a little less puffy. I thought we should do something a little more whimsy since I would be shooting her profile mostly. As much as I didn’t mind her having pictures with a black eye, I didn’t exactly want to send out twenty something black eye invitations. Dressed in her purple tutu dress with her matching purple eye, we headed to the park and found a nice, shaded, slightly overgrown grassy patch. We were on our way to meet up with some family members so we had to keep the shoot short. I may not have gotten the perfect shot that I was looking for in that short amount of time, but I was able to get a few good ones that would work for our needs.

Later when I was playing with the images in Photoshop and looking for the perfect invitation that I could get quickly and cheaply I was pleased with how everything came together. The purple dress that she got from her Ginga (Mason’s mom) and the purple carnation that she got from Great Grandma Ev (my grandma) ended up going perfectly with the Tinker Bell invite from Wal-mart, thus changing our theme from Rubber Ducks to Fairies. I was so nervous when I decided to use Wal-mart, being a photo snob, I questioned their quality. But I couldn’t find a better price or a better turn-around time. I could have both my invites and my thank you cards in an hour. When I went to pick them up, I was shocked at how much I loved them. The colors were spot on and there wasn’t a pixel in sight. I love when my low expectations are proven oh-so-wrong.

This wasn't one of the pictures we used, but it does show off her eye quite nicely.

A Very Long Weekend

I think it’s safe to say that I need a break from the long weekend. It started off great with an incredibly HOT birthday party in the park on Saturday. The kids didn’t seem to notice the heat, but the adults sure did. It was a great party and we are so blessed to have so many of our friends and family able to brave the heat and celebrate with us. Eventually we made it home where we chatted with our out of town guests for as long as we could keep our eyes open.

The next morning we got up and got ready to head to the zoo. The long days from the week before had definitely taken its toll on my walking abilities. Which I proved by missing the last step and tweaking my ankle. I’m not gonna lie, it hurt. It hurt so bad I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to stand up or not. But I managed, and limped out the door. I was going to do everything in my power to make sure my ankle didn’t keep us cooped up inside on such a beautiful day. And I’m quite sure our friends didn’t travel all the way from KC to sit on the couch and watch Netflix all weekend either.

So I played tough. But I also knew it would be impossible for me to walk around the zoo all day. So I walked hobbled from the car to the entrance. Once the chair was secured, Mason pushed me around through the zoo. Go ahead, make fun. But I knew that was the only way we were going to get to do what we had planned on doing. I thought I was feeling better when we were done. But that was apparently only because I had been keeping the weight off of it. Once I took that first step and almost fell over from pain, I knew that my $7 rental fee had not gone to waste. The boys ran off to get the cars and Tami chased Lina around for me while we waited.

That night, I promised Mason that if my ankle wasn’t feeling better the next day, then I would go and get it checked out. I lost that bet. So after our guests left we made our way to the Urgent Care where they contorted my ankle in all different directions in order to take x-rays. The x-rays proved that I was right, it was just a sprain.

Celebrate!

I think I may have mentioned this before, but I’ll say it again just in case you forgot.  The 4^th of July is one of my favorite holidays.  Unfortunately for me, it is not anywhere close to being one of Lina’s favorites.

It wasn't all bad though.  She did have fun at the party at least.

Labels

I received some labels in the mail from Applied Labels for Elina to review on this here blog.  They claim to be dishwasher and laundry proof and perfect for labeling kids items for school or daycare.  Well, Lina is still to young to attend school and going to my Mom’s house doesn’t really count as daycare.  So I had to get creative about what was worthy of getting a label.  I thought about putting a label in one of her books, but that wouldn’t really test the product and it would drive me crazy.  I can’t even handle price tags on my books, or folded pages for that matter.  Call me weird.  I didn't want to put a label on her clothes, because she might have a sister one day who will be able to wear her adorable clothes.

Finally our trip to Mason's family reunion/vacation proved to be a worthy event for testing these labels.  Four items were tested for this trip.  A sippy cup, a snack catcher, a pink rubber duckie and a squirty elephant.  I wanted to put a label on her fabric covered raft as well, but the directions for the labels said to put them on the tag only.  There was no tag, so I didn't attempt it.

The Results:

Sippy Cup:  There was no flat surface on this cup, so I couldn't find a good place to stick the label.  Since the label had no stretch, the top and bottom of the label were left unstuck.  Even partially unstuck, the label showed no signs of falling off.  It was pulled off before being stuck in the dishwasher.

Snack Catcher:  There were plenty of places to stick the label on this one.  This probably also received the most abuse on the trip as well.  It held Lina's snacks, became a toy with several of her cousins and spent most of it's time being drooled on and dropped on the ground.  It has been through the dish washer several times and the label is still there looking brand new.

Bath Toys:  I brought these along for Lina to play with in the pool, they weren't very expensive so I wasn't too worried about loosing them.  But I didn't exactly feel like replacing them either.  I also wasn't expecting the labels to stick very well either.  The material was just too flexible, and the labels did slip a little.  That being said, those toys have been floating around in the pool with the hot sun shining on them for a month and the labels are still there.

All in all, the labels worked great.  We returned from our trip with all of our items.  The snack catcher went missing for a little while, but it was returned by dinner.  It's a good thing it had her name on it, otherwise who knows where it would have ended up.

Because I liked this product so much, I get to share this deal with you.  $5 off your labels and free shipping!

Shop www.AppliedLabels.com

Enter "B2S2011" in your shopping cart (the field is in the bottom left corner).

Click the blue button below the field reading "Enter Coupon Code & Click to Update."

*Free shipping is first-class and ONLY available on label packs. $5 OFF coupon is applied to each label pack and each order containing Applied Labels™, Mini Applied Labels™ and Tag-A-Longs™. Excludes all B2B orders.

STOCK UP! HURRY and beat the rush! This offer will expire September 1, 2011.


I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Her First Sentance

If Elina were one of the Little Miss characters, her name would be "Little Miss Sassy."  In fact I think she is going to need some of those books for her birthday.

On Friday I asked Miss O to come get a piece of paper from me and give it to Mimi.  Normally Miss O would jump at this opportunity.  But this day, the blocks were more important, so she said "no."  I of course had no choice but to try again.  When she ignored me, my sister told Miss O to tell me what she always told her.  Miss O continued to play with her blocks and yelled (as if we were in separate rooms), "Just a minute!"

Lina adores Miss O and wants to do everything that Miss O does.  Without skipping a beat, Lina shouted "Yus-a-yenet!" 

The words might not have been perfectly formed, but the tone was dead on.  I knew I was going to have my hands full while I was still pregnant, but how do you prepare yourself for your 11 month old daughter telling you just a minute?