Happy Halloween & Happy 3rd Birthday!

Natalie opened her eyes this morning and the first thing out of her mouth was, "Am I 8 now?"

What is it with being 8? I can't even believe she's 3 already!

It was a wonderful, busy, crazy day. I swear Natalie is talking more like a big kid today and less like a toddler. And yes...she talked...and talked...after a day full of playgroup candy (Halloween party), birthday cake, and Halloween candy. Sugar, sugar, sugar...talk, talk, talk.

The birthday cake was a hit! It is a Barbie princess cake, with a real doll in the middle, and cake for her skirt. Natalie and Liam were both fascinated. NO, don't even ask if I made it. I can't even make a plain sheet cake right, so this was far, far out of my league. I know my limits.

The surprise of the night may be that Natalie was NOT a princess for Halloween. She was an adorable kitty cat. I was quite happy about that, as I figure we have many years of princesses ahead of us. Liam made a good Star Wars Clonetrooper, but of course (as usual) would not wear his helmet except to pose for a picture.

There were so many kids in the neighborhood tonight - I think we must have dished out about 50 lbs of candy. It was crazy, I tell you.

Yoda Pumpkin, it is...

And here is the pumpkin for...guess who...

It may not be quite as good as the princess pumpkin, but I'm a little more proud of this one because the princess one came from a Disney stencil, while this one I did on my own (from a picture). There were some stencils of Yoda pumpkins, but they were mostly side views and included the ears in the carving. I really wanted to do the clay ears. Now that it is done...I see why they would have carved the ears too. The full effect is not seen in direct light (because the facial features need the inside light to look good), and not fully seen in the dark either (because you don't see the ears or hair in the dark). So it was a good pumpkin experiment, anyway, and I will have different ideas for next year. And...most importantly...Liam loves it.

The excitement is building to the big Halloween and 3rd Birthday celebration tomorrow. Natalie knows she will be 3, but for some reason she periodically asks me if she is going to be 8. Just checking, I guess.

Happy Birthday Jim!!

Happy Birthday Jim!! I won't say how old you are - just that you are now officially Over 40. :-)

You have changed so much, and yet...some things stay the same (yes, that is Darth Vader he is holding).

We love you!

One Down...

Can you guess whose pumpkin this might be?

She liked it a lot more once we lit the candle. Without light from the inside it is harder to recognize the face. I hope it lasts until Friday without too much mold.

Now, on to Star Wars....

Feeling Fall-ish

OK, it doesn't really look a whole lot like Fall around here in terms of tree colors. But the air is cooler...

As part of a school assignment to collect leaves, we visited a nature preserve this weekend (yes, it IS that difficult to find leaves in the neighborhood). The kids both had a great time. Liam insisted before we left that he only wanted to stay long enough to collect 4 (only 4! No more! grump, grump, grump) leaves. Before we left he had a baggie full of them, and was singing the praises of the great outdoors. Natalie declared herself a "very good leaf picker". Even Jim said that maybe we should make this park a Sunday tradition (I think he will reconsider when he remembers that Football is supposed to be a Sunday tradition).

Yee-Haw

My little Pardners going to a school Hoedown. Yee-haw, Pardners. (Natalie must have said that about 100 times before we even got there).

No Good News

Quick update on the adoption.

We received a referral last week. It was sort of a surprise, even though we have obviously been waiting. We fell in love over the weekend with her cute little face and sweet eyes. Unfortunately, the review of her medical details with the Int'l Adoption clinic doctor did not go well, and we ended up making the decision to decline this referral. I know this happens, especially with Russia. I underestimated how hard this would be. At this point in time all I can see when I close my eyes is her face. I wish I could tell her that I'm sorry. In the end, we had to make a decision based on whether this was best for the whole family. Now we just pray that she does find a wonderful, forever family somewhere out there.

Camping and Halloween Prep

It is a busy time of year around here. So many things to do, pumpkins to buy, costumes to finalize, birthdays to celebrate (Natalie, Jim, Helen...).

Our neighborhood had a camp-out this weekend. We were all supposed to pitch tents in our front yard and sleep outside for the night. We ordered pizza and had a bit of a street party (despite the fact that our street is used for what appears to be drag racing at all times of the evening and night - dang people drive fast down this street!). Jim dutifully pitched the tent, but I didn't really think many, if any, of us (in particular the females of us) would sleep in the tent. Then, as the partying continued...Natalie was like the little Energizer bunny, wired up and chattering non-stop. Tigger got out of the house (kids opening the door...and he was waiting like he does, to make his dash), so Natalie and I walked the neighborhood with a flashlight. It almost made me sad that he was gone, as she kept repeating "Tigger is lost...forever and ever and ever...trying to eat bunnies...and then he'll burp and say excuse me...forever and ever and ever." Anyway, the point is that she was wired. So we stayed up late and then decided to sleep in the tent. We piled in blankets and all snuggled together. It was FUN. Then at some point probably around 2...we hear "Meow, meow" outside the tent. He found us. So I put the cat inside the house while we stayed outside. Didn't notice the feathers and carcass on the front porch until the next day (after finding the vomit trial inside the house). He does make it hard to miss him.

We made it out there until 4:30am, at which point the cold, hard ground was making it extremely hard for me to sleep. So we carried the kids inside and finished out the night in our bed.

We also have some shots of our pumpkin buying excursion. It wasn't a big pumpkin place, but it was big enough. The kids loved the hay maze. We have some big ideas for pumpkins this year...I won't give it away, but let's just say Star Wars and Disney Princesses may be involved.

7th Anniversary!

A few days late...but Happy 7th Anniversary to my wonderful husband! I can't believe it's been that long. We had a wonderful date night, thanks to Grandma Helen's wonderful babysitting. Thanks Grandma!! We always feel silly asking someone to take our picture, so all we have is a close-up taken by me, holding the camera as far aways as my arms will reach.

It's been a good week - some Halloween baking, some pleasant Fall-ish weather, a museum tour of King Tut artifacts. Good stuff. Today we all had lunch with Liam in the school cafeteria. It is so cute to see him interact with his school friends (and his GIRLfriend...yes, he calls her this- I can't believe it).

We're going to miss having Grandma around!

The Dynamic Duo

The girl of many tutus...

And let me just say Wow it is hard to get a picture of the two together these days.

I've Been Tagged- 6 Random Things

I've been tagged by my fellow blogger, Natalie. Now I have to list 6 Random Things about myself. So here goes.

1. I am terrible about keeping in touch with friends. I have a few long-standing friends, but I realize that it is probably much more due to their efforts to keep in touch. Time seems to slip by so quickly, and reaching out to my friends gets pushed down on my list. I'm ashamed of that, because I really do value my friendships.

2. I used to be a cat person. In fact, there was a time when I, and probably most people who knew me, imagined I would be 60 and never-married and happily obssessed with my cats. I will always remember sweet Rita (rest in peace), but have to admit that my current cat gets no attention and garners nothing more than exasperation. I never thought I would turn from a cat person to a kid-only person, but I have. Or maybe it's just THIS cat...

3. I'm painfully shy and self-conscious around people, especially large groups. I was a military "brat" and moved every 2 years or so until settling in Ohio in 3rd grade. I always thought that may have caused my shyness. But now raising children, I'm thinking genetics probably had a lot more to do with it than I realized. It's amazing the personality that emerges from a tiny baby from Day 1.

4. I'll add this one because it came up recently, and Jim could not believe it. When I was in elementary school I volunteered to work in the cafeteria. Cleaning off dirty trays, loading and unloading steaming hot, huge dish washers. I think I got free lunches. Now I realize that probably the only kids that did this, couldn't afford lunches. I did it because I thought it was fun. I liked feeling like I was working for lunch, and got satisfaction from being sweaty from the physical labor. If Jim knew this story before marrying me, he may have thought twice.

5. If I could have one persons wardrobe, I would probably pick Ellen Degeneres. Again, Jim may not have wanted to know this prior to marriage (I can hide this trait while dating). :-) I have always been uncomfortable in dresses. Comfortable, casual, slightly manly clothes...totally me.

6. I like to think I'm a patient person, but I'm not. I didn't think adoption waiting would gnaw at me the way it does.

Wow, this sounds more like a taxicab confessional. Maybe I should have added some lighter subjects.

I'm now going to tag: Marina, Robin, Heidi, Lauri, Lucky Mom (4 from Rostov blog - I don't even know your name!), and Dawn.

Noisy Cat

First, let me say that I know I desperately need to get some new kid pictures out here, and especially update the picture at the top of the page. I don't even like that picture much, but I don't have many with the two of them together. I am going to work on that this week.

Now, about the title: The Noisy Cat has become Natalie's code word for "please leave me alone now". It started as MY way of slipping out of her bedroom at night. Tigger was always around, and always noisy at bedtime. I think it started back in the days when Liam was struggling with bedtime so much, and we tried the Super Nanny approach which meant that we sat on his floor and moved farther away each night until we were outside the door. Except...we could never seem to get any farther than right outside his door, where we would sit... for a long time. So Tigger would come around and I would pet him, for lack of anything better to do. Long story short...now Tigger is programmed (Pavlov's cat) to come around lookin' for love at bedtime, and when he's lookin' for love he meows great big, noisy meows. Natalie has no patience for Tigger or his loud meows. So it worked well when I wanted to leave her room after tucking her in, I would tell her I had to "get the Noisy Cat" out of her room.

Well, Natalie has never really wanted lingering good nights anyway, and now she hardly wants a snuggle at all. If I stay much more than a minute now, she will tell ME "go get the Noisy Cat." The funny thing is that she tells me that even if Tigger is in the backyard, and not near her room. She even told me that the other day in the middle of the day when she wanted me to leave the room so she could get into something. "Get the Noisy Cat" is my directive to leave the room. It's good. I like it. It's much more tactful than - go away, Mom!

On the adoption wait: No news. I was hoping to hear of a referral this week that might bump us into #1 in line (I know that sounds like a game show or a contest or something). Instead, Liam brought home his pick from the school library last week, and I'll quote Dr. Seuss from the book "Oh the Places You'll Go!"

"The Waiting Place....for people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or a No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting."

Excellent book. Thank you, Dr. Seuss. Some days the Waiting seems larger than life, and I'm ashamed at how much energy it takes away from other things.