Sugar Cookies

Play dates at my house usually involve a whole lot of running around and destroying things and not many scheduled or planned activities.  Most of the play dates we go to are much the same.  However, I do have a friend or two who organize wonderful, organized and thoughtful gatherings for our children.  For example, a cookie making party for the under 3 crowd....

Complete with gobs of icing...

Hersheys Kisses

and M&M's.

Lot's of M&M's.

And pre lunch cocktails for the mommies....

Keepin' My Eyes on This One....

Checking her out...

Buttering her up....

Going in for the kill....

Looking very pleased with himself....

First snow

Grace saw her fair share of snow last year, but judging by her absolute delight with yesterday's snow, I think it's safe to say, she has no recollection of it.

Getting outside to play in it was even better than looking at it from the window.  She's pretty much telling me here to put the darn camera away and let her play.  "No pictures mommy!"

When you don't finish raking, you get very dirty looking snow men....

Batteries and Pee

Grace is napping less frequently.  The fact that she can get out of her bed and play, or shake her door, is apparently much more enjoyable than sleeping.  I'm no longer able to just read her a story and then tuck her in and walk away.  Instead, we read three stories, I beg, I promise treats, we pray....sometimes it works.

The other day as I held her, she began to rub my breast and look at me longingly.  "Have some milk mommy?  Pwease?"

"Oh, sweetie.  Mommies milk doesn't work anymore."

To which she replied, "Get new batteries?"

Oh Grace, batteries don't fix everything!

I put her in bed and went to my room.  A few minutes later, I heard a door open.  Shoot, she figured out how to open her door!  Then I heard, "Oh hi Sam!"

I ran from my room and grabbed a groggy Sam by the arm.  "What the heck do you think you're doing?"  He said nothing.  He completely ignored me, walked into the hallway, turned and faced the wall and then pulled down his pants and peed in a basket of clean laundry.

Apparently, my son can make messes even when he's asleep.

The unthinkable happened today

I put Grace in her crib for a time out and she climbed out. She called my name from the top of the stairs and proudly announced, "I got out. By myself! Huh!" and stomped her little foot.

I am undone. It's quite possible that I will never get more than 3 straight hours of sleep again.

Rock On!

My nephew Ian is a rock star.

Okay.  A high school band rock star.

My son, well, he's a groupie.

Note the cotton in his ears.  My boy partied till 9:30!

It was a BIG secret.  We didn't tell Grace.  We snuck out after she went to bed.

This morning, he told Grace "I didn't go anywhere last night.  I just went to bed.  Okay?"

When my sister in law called and asked what his favorite part of the show was, he said nothing.  When she asked if everything was okay, he replied, "I really can't talk about it right now.  Grace is here and she will be very upset if she hears."

Nothing like a little truth and honesty and giving your sister credit for being smart enough to figure it out.

"Twick or Tweat"

My dinosaur and Tinkerbell, AKA "Faiwy Pwincess" had so much fun trick-or-treating last night. Grace carried her weight in candy (the handle on her plastic pumpkin actually broke. A nice neighbor taped it back together for us) and stayed up way past her bed time. This morning, when we asked what she wanted to do, she suggested, "twick or tweating"?

Hope everyone had fun!